Although there has been considerable "post hoc" research on student views of supervisors, there is little on how candidate expectations are constituted at or close to the point of commencement. This study reads students' commentary about the 'ideal supervisor' at the point of institutional induction to examine commencing candidate…

Current understandings of the expectations and educational needs of commencing PhD students are based on research focusing on the retrospective recollections of middle or late-stage candidates about the extent to which their expectations at entry were met. This article explores the prospective expectations of 199 commencing PhD students at the…

When Indigenous and non-Indigenous postgraduate research students start researching Indigenous topics, how can we best prepare them for the task ahead? In this article, I describe the approach taken by one regional Australian university to support research students with Indigenous topics through a Master of Philosophy (Indigenous). Drawing on…

This article provides a description and analysis of the way in which research degree students and their supervisors at one Australian university (the University of South Australia) use a popular online plagiarism-detection system, iThenticate. The study identifies how these two groups use iThenticate by analysing usage data together with data from…

Developing a research identity is a critical space for novice researchers in teacher education. This self-study explores the experiences of a postgraduate Master of Education student who was working as a novice research assistant with her supervisor to explain how these experiences contributed to research identity development. As novice researcher…

While higher education (HE) is entrenched as a context for scholarly inquiry in Australian universities, there remains contest about it as a research field. Unlike other forms of 'Education', in Australia there is no undergraduate programme inducting students into HE's key questions, scholars, and inquiry modes. For new doctoral students, learning…

Encouraging doctoral students to publish during their candidature is becoming more widely accepted and practised, both in Australia and internationally, although it is still less common in some fields. Almost all universities in Australia now offer candidates an option to include publications in their doctoral thesis. This paradigm shift has…

The professional development of supervisors of higher degree research students is growing in importance and undergoing change, based on the demand for timely completion of higher degrees and the Australian federal government's quality agenda driving improvement of practice. Research has informed the design of research supervision frameworks within…

The quality of the relationship between academic research supervisors and their students has been recognized as the most important determinant of successful and timely postgraduate degree completion. Many functions have been deemed important in facilitating this alliance. However, due to resource constraints and personal capabilities, supervisors…

This paper describes the experiences of doctoral candidates involved in the first year of a transnational research training partnership between Australia and the Philippines. It aims to ascertain how the partnership model of the programme has been perceived by doctoral candidates, and to understand its associated benefits and challenges.…

This article presents a work-based learning and research approach to professional postgraduate education specifically in the case of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) programs. It highlights a prototype of the Cohort-based Advisory Team (CAT) model as a useful strategy. The authors propose that a design thinking approach that empathises with the…

The article examines the experiences of Chinese PhD students doing research in China Studies as well as the experiences of their supervisors who supervise their research in Australian universities. By conducting semi-structured interviews with both PhD students and their supervisors, we aim to understand the expectations, concerns and challenges…

This study sought to gain an understanding of the current statistical training and support needs for Australian Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students and their supervisors. The data reported herein are based on the survey responses of 191 (18.7%) eligible supervisors from a single Australian institution. The survey was composed of both…

Supervisor induction and continued professional development programmes constitute good practice and are enshrined in institutional policies and national codes of practice. However, there is little evidence about whether they have an impact on either supervisors' learning or day-to-day practice. Set in a discussion of previous literature, this…

This study addresses the issue of international education through a human development lens. Using a group of Chinese doctoral students in Australia as a case study, it adopts volunteer-employed photography (VEP) to tease out the negative and positive forces that influence students' developmental trajectories during their doctoral education.…