JOINT SUPERVISION PRACTICES IN MULTI-DISCIPLINARY DOCTORAL EDUCATION: STUDENT'S EXPERIENCES IN A TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY IN FINLAND

摘要

This study explores students' experiences in joint supervision practices in a context of multi-disciplinary doctoral education system in a technical university in Finland. Previous literature on supervision of doctoral students has noted disciplinary differences in supervision. In this paper we focus on student's experiences in a multi-disciplinary context and explore the characteristics of such research training structure. The focus of this paper is on joint supervision, which has attracted less attention in literature but which has been noted important for the quality of doctoral education. Qualitative methodology was used to explore students' experiences in joint supervision practices and an inductive protocol was used to analyze the data gathered through thematic interviews (N=11). This study extends previous literature by illustrating three kinds of research training structures within one multi-disciplinary department and describing how joint supervision may contribute to these structures. The study suggests that multi-disciplinary doctoral education would benefit from using joint supervision practices. The results indicate that joint supervision practices may strengthen the positive elements of the research training structure that relate to the quality of doctoral education. Further, the results indicate that the research training structures in the studied multi-disciplinary context are diverse and therefore, the Teamwork and Individualist research training structures as such do not fully characterize the nature of such context.