This paper examines the function of 'expertise' in mediating the student-supervisor relationship in Higher Degree Research (HDR). Prevailing conceptualisations of expertise generally translate as "disciplinary acumen" and reference the supervisor's specialist disciplinary and methodological knowledge. Beyond establishing the disciplinary…

Past studies on doctoral education have mostly focused on the critical role of supervisors in students' research experience. However, the role of peers has been relatively neglected. It is not clear how both supervisors and peers contribute to doctoral students' research experience. One possibility is that they are additive, which means that both…

This article provides an explanation for previously observed gender differences in scientific performance during doctoral studies and the early career. Data is based on doctoral students in science, technology, and medicine at a Swedish university. We collected information on each doctoral student's publication and employment history. We also…

The increasing demands on faculty members and students to conduct research might result in domination in supervisor-student relations across cultural contexts. This study aimed to explore how students' research relationships with their supervisors are manifested within TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) postgraduate curriculum in Iran's…

Publication pressure is perceived to be filtering down into doctoral education worldwide. We explore the causes and effects of the perceived centrality of publishing among doctoral students, emphasising the impact of publication pressure on students' identity trajectories. We draw on a qualitative analysis of 90 mainland Chinese doctoral students…

Research experience is widely used in quality assurance exercises to benchmark postgraduate education at the institutional level. However, individual differences in students' research experience have been largely neglected. Furthermore, little is known about how differences in students' research experience are associated with skill development and…

Using the invariance test, this study compared the research experiences of students from two sibling cultural groups in a Hong Kong context. Data were collected from 304 Mainland Chinese and 225 local Hong Kong research students. Their research experiences were measured using the Student Research Experience Questionnaire (SREQ) and two scales…

This article reviews the literature on supervisory elements in distance postgraduate research programmes leading to a master's or doctoral degree. The authors first identify and review the main supervisory challenges from the perspectives of both supervisor and supervisee. This paves the path to investigate and categorise the strategies that have…

Researchers from outside the European Union represent an increasing proportion of the UK doctoral student body. However, relatively little research exists on their experience from their own perspective. This research, based on interviews with students from a range of countries and scientific and engineering disciplines, seeks to address that…

Literature about doctoral supervision has concentrated on describing the ever lengthening lists of functions that must be carried out. This functional approach is necessary, but there has been little exploration of a different paradigm, a conceptual approach towards research supervision. This article, based on interviews with supervisors from a…

This article is part of a larger scale project on some aspects of the process of academic socialization of a group of Iranian Ph.D. students studying in five UK universities, particularly focusing on the relationship between these students and their supervisors. The study included eight engineering and five social sciences/humanities students, as…