Results of a cross survey aimed at PhD supervisors and doctoral researchers in France

Slides de la présentation de Carole Chapin à la Nordic Conference on PhD supervision (CoPhS) 2024

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Adoc Mètis : des outils pour déployer les talents de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche
Results of a cross survey aimed
at PhD supervisors and doctoral
researchers in France
CoPhS – September 30 – October 2, 2024
Carole CHAPIN, Adoc Mètis
Barthélémy DURETTE, Solstice
Simon E.B. THIERRY, Adoc Mètis

2. 2
Overview
●Cross-survey aimed at doctoral supervisors (DS) and
doctoral researchers (DR)
●Findings :
–Identification of situations that arise frequently for DS but for
which they are not satisfied with their reaction
–Perception discrepancies in the occurrence frequency of some
situations between DSs and DRs
–Supervisors willing to be trained are less satisfied with their
reactions than the others (DSs not willing to attend training, DSs
who already attended training)

3. 3
Disclosure statement : Adoc Mètis
●Consulting and training firm,
specialized in Human
Resources Management for
Higher Education and Research
(since 2012)
●5 PhDs : consultants, trainers
and researchers
●Trainings about
–Research methodology
–Equality & diversity
–Management (including doctoral
supervision)
–Pedagogy

4. 4
Outline
●
Survey protocol
●
Impact of the scientific field
●
Frequent situations with unsatisfying practices
●
Frequency discrepancies between supervisors and doctoral
researchers
●
Impact of supervisory training
●
Conclusion

5. Survey protocol
CoPhS 2024

6. 6
Cross-survey
Doctoral supervisors
304 exploitable answers
Mirror questions, e.g.
–“How often do you have to give advice to a doctoral researcher
regarding the scientific orientation of their project ?”
–“How often do you ask your supervisor for advice regarding the
scientific orientation of your project ?”
Doctoral researchers
1023 exploitable answers
Survey structure and anonymised results available on Zenodo (in French) : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4340821

7. 7
Principles of the survey
Satisfaction : Likert scale
Survey structure and anonymised results available on Zenodo (in French) : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4340821

8. 8
Principles of the survey
●5 topics covered :
–Scientific supervision
–Supervisory relationship
–Advancement of the research project
–Skills development
–Career preparation
●DR/DS comparisons : weighted answers
based on the numbers of DRs and
permanent researchers (data from the
french ministry for HER)
1
●Statistical analysis performed by 2nd
author (Barthélémy Durette)
Survey structure and anonymised results available on Zenodo (in French) : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4340821
1
Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, Etat de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, https://publication.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/eesr/FR/

9. 9
Limitations
●No information allowing us to link a supervisor’s answer
with their supervisees’ answers
●Diffusion bias :
–Institutions we work with are more likely to have passed on the
survey
–People who attended our trainings are more likely to have opened
the email
●Interest bias : people who answered are more likely to
believe that doctoral supervision is an important topic

10. Impact of the scientific field
CoPhS 2024

11. 11
Impact of the scientific field
●Our hypothesis : satisfaction with the
practices will vary according to the
scientific fields, with a strong
correlation with the funding levels of
each discipline
●Findings :
–Significant impact of the discipline on the
frequency of some situations (see fig. on
the right)
–Non-significant impact of the discipline on
the satisfaction with the supervisory
practices
●Our interpretation : hedonic treadmill +
anchoring bias
Examples of differences in the frequency of
occurrence (%age of DRs who answered
“sometimes” or “often”)
1)I delay the doctoral reseearcher's task to give
them time to overcome one of their difficulties
2)The specific characteristics of a doctoral
researcher require different treatment in terms
of supervision
3)I take a decision with which my doctoral
researcher disagrees
4)A doctoral researcher I'm supervising is finding it
hard to become independent
5)I need to help a doctoral researcher improve their
writing skills

12. Frequent situations with unsatisfying practices
CoPhS 2024

13. 13
Occurence frequency according to supervisors

14. 14
Frequent situations with unsatisfactory
practices

15. 15
Frequent situations with unsatisfactory
practices
●Situations that arise frequently according to doctoral supervisors
but for which they are unsatisfied with their reaction
–Assisting doctoral researchers with the administrative aspects of the
doctorate
–Delays in completing tasks in order to give doctoral researcher time to
overcome difficulties
–Planning doctoral researchers' writing tasks
–Improving doctoral researchers' writing skills
–Improving doctoral researchers' synthesis skills
●Those topics are of interest for supervisory training
–Training content
–Training advertising

16. Frequency discrepancies between supervisors
and doctoral researchers
CoPhS 2024

17. 17
Discrepancies in perception of occurrence
frequency
●For some situations, the occurrence frequency mentioned by
supervisors does not seem compatible with the one mentioned
by doctoral researchers
●Considering only people PhD holders (had the occasion to
encounter all situations) and supervisors of at least 5 doctoral
researchers :
–X = percentage of supervisees who encountered the situation
(sometimes+often)
–Probability of having never encountered the situation for a supervisor is at
most (1-x)
5
“theoretical maximal percentage” of DSs answering “No,
→
never”
●We isolated situations for which the percentage of “No, never”
was way higher than the “theoretical maximal percentage”

18. 18
Situations with strong discrepancies

19. 19
Supervisory tool
●Situations where there is a strong discrepancy in
perception between DR and DS could be sources of
misunderstandings and conflicts
●Could lead to an interview guide / interview
recommandations for supervisors : list of questions that
should be raised from time to time with doctoral
researchers

20. Impact of supervisory training
CoPhS 2024

21. 21
Global satisfaction levels
●Global satisfaction level for a
question : number of “little
unsatisfied” + number of “very
unsatisfied”
–No correlation between global
satisfaction and having attended a
training (p > 0,5)
–Among the untrained supervisors,
correlation between global
satisfaction and wanting to attend a
training (p < 0,05)
●Global satisfaction level for a
given supervisor : mean value of
weighted answers (very
unsatisfied = 0 ; very satisfied = 4)

22. 22
Our interpretations
●Supervisors not willing to be trained : they are satisfied
with their practices and see no reason to be trained
●Supervisors who encounter issues they can not tackle :
they are open to attending training
●Supervisors who attended a training found the tools to
tackle difficult situations

23. Conclusion
CoPhS 2024

24. 24
Summary
●Cross survey with mirror questions
●Identification of certain situations in which supervisors are
not satisfied, and which could be addressed during
training
●Identification of issues on which perceptions differ, and
recommendation to supervisors to discuss them
●Different levels of satisfaction depending on whether
you've been trained or not, interpretation pending further
inquiry

25. 25
Perspectives
●Qualitative study to dig further
–Interview supervisors and their supervisees, in order to better
determine differences in perception
–Ask supervisees about their satisfaction w/r to their supervision
and compare with whether or not their supervisors attended
training
●Study the (un)satisfaction of trained supervisors in more
detail (situation by situation rather than with a global level
of satisfaction)

26. Thank you for your attention !
[email protected]