The Supervisor-Student Relationship

In this chapter, we look more closely at the relationship between supervisors and students, which is an essential part of the supervision process and the development of the degree project work. The type of supervisor-student relationship that prevails in a particular supervision situation affects, for example, the tools used by the supervisor and the demands and expectations placed on the student. How can you, as a supervisor, help to ensure that this relationship is constructive and conducive to student independence? We discuss several aspects of this, starting with the balance between the professional and the personal in supervision, and how this may be handled and understood by supervisors in different local academic contexts. We go on to consider how the design of the conversation itself can affect the relationship between supervisor and student, using our empirical material of recorded supervision sessions to see, for example, whether supervision conversations tend to be student-led or supervisor-led, and what this might mean for the relationship between supervisor and student in terms of, for instance, student independence, scaffolding and the role of the supervisor.