Scaffolding Tools for Student Independence

In this chapter we explore and discuss a number of potential scaffolding tools that supervisors can use in the supervision process, and how supervisors’ use of them can help to enable and encourage student independence. We discuss how such scaffolding tools can be used more or less consciously and deliberately by supervisors, how they can have different functions at different stages of the degree project work and how such tools need to be adapted to individual students and their situations, backgrounds and abilities. We begin by looking at supervisors’ use of demands, recommendations and questions and how this may relate to the student-supervisor relationship and the different roles of supervisors. We then consider the role of praise in the supervision interaction and how different forms of praise may serve different purposes. Finally, we discuss degree project supervision as a multi-voiced activity, where supervisors can use active voicing to clarify for students the different roles and responsibilities of actors within the degree project context, such as examiners and course coordinators.