Undergraduate research supervision: A gender analysis

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a small study aimed at analysing the way supervisors of undergraduate research discuss their style of supervision. The study was motivated by an interest in the possibility that gendered ways of working may influence the student-supervisor relationship. A qualitative approach to data collection was taken, using unstructured and taped interviews with supervisors, with transcription viewing by the supervisors for accuracy and further comment. The similarities and differences found within and between the women and men supervisors' texts are contextualised within current literature. Concepts of knowledge and power, as potential key features of the gendered supervisory relationship, were used to develop the analysis. The empirical data reveal contrasting ways of working and some gendered differences in the way the supervisors used language to describe and discuss their practice of supervision. The study raises questions about the way in which gender may impact upon the supervision of research through its influence on the knowledge flow and power dynamics between student and supervisor. We suggest that these factors have the potential to create distinctive supervisory relationships.