Supervisor wellbeing and identity: Challenges and strategies

Purpose This research aims to explore the professional identity of supervisors and their perceptions of stress in doctoral learning supervision. The research determines ways of developing strategies of resilience and well-being to overcome stress, leading to positive outcomes for supervisors and students. Design/methodology/approach Research is in two parts: first, rescrutinising previous work, and second, new interviews with international and UK supervisors gathering evidence of doctoral supervisor stress, in relation to professional identity, and discovering resilience and well-being strategies. Findings Supervisor professional identity and well-being are aligned with research progress, and effective supervision. Stress and well-being/resilience strategies emerged across three dimensions, namely, personal, learning and institutional, related to emotional, professional and intellectual issues, affecting identity and well-being. Problematic relationships, change in supervision arrangements, loss of students and lack of student progress cause stress. Balances between responsibility and autonomy; uncomfortable conflicts arising from personality clashes; and the nature of the research work, burnout and lack of time for their own work, all cause supervisor stress. Developing community support, handling guilt and a sense of underachievement and self-management practices help maintain well-being. Research limitations/implications Only experienced supervisors (each with four doctoral students completed) were interviewed. The research relies on interview responses. Practical implications Sharing information can lead to informed, positive action minimising stress and isolation; development of personal coping strategies and institutional support enhance the supervisory experience for supervisors and students. Originality/value The research contributes new knowledge concerning doctoral supervisor experience, identity and well-being, offering research-based information and ideas on a hitherto under-researched focus: supervisor stress, well-being and resilience impacting on supervisors’ professional identity. </jats:sec

The purpose and impact of postgraduate knowledge

Purpose: Much research into outcomes of doctoral learning focuses on employability, or the dearth of academic employment in relation to doctoral graduate expectations, emphasising precarity of academic future work. This new work begins with and moves beyond employment issues, highlighting professional practice and personal knowledge development and impact. Design/methodology/approach: Much doctoral education research focuses on the academic identities of postgraduates, their change and alignment to the work and experience of being a doctoral student and beyond, in academic or other jobs. This longitudinal work explores professional and social impact from doctoral research and transformational changes experienced and reported by graduates in two projects. Based on narrative interviewing turned into case studies, it asks fundamental questions about the purpose and impact of postgraduate knowledge. Findings: Respondents emphasised change in their sense of personal, academic and professional identity; immediate impact on professional practice leading to job change, status, changes in practices and longer-term impacts of further influences on professional practice, some international in reach. Research limitations/implications: This small-scale study has widespread implications for understanding the impact of postgraduate knowledge on professional practice and personal development. Practical implications: The work could influence doctoral student intentions and the focus of doctoral programmes. Social implications: Postgraduate knowledge is seen as crucial in theorised and practical contributions to social development. Originality/value: This longitudinal work generates new knowledge, answering questions: What is the purpose of postgraduate knowledge? Who benefits from results? What is the impact from the research? How are outcomes put into professional practice? It found significant developments in professional practice and personal development

Penumbra: Doctoral support as drama: From the ‘lightside' to the ‘darkside'. From front of house to trapdoors and recesses

Much international doctoral learning research focuses on the personal, institutional and learning support provided by supervisors through supervisory dialogues, managed relationships, and the ‘nudging' of robust, conceptual, critical and creative work. Other work focuses on the stresses experienced in both supervisor-student relationships and the doctoral journey itself. Some considers formal and informal learning communities supporting students on their research journeys, and roles played by families, friends and others, sometimes offering encouragement and sometimes an added stress. However, little has yet been explored, exposed and shared concerning the often unofficial, largely unrecognised range of meaningful others in students' ‘life-worlds', variously supporting their doctoral learning journeys in terms of research, writing and editing. Research, based in experience and interviews with doctoral students and supervisors from UK and international contexts, reveals a wide range of support (termed ‘the penumbra'), both university sanctioned (‘lightside'), as well as less well recognised often unsanctioned support (‘darkside') on the doctoral research and writing learning journey, opening up questions about doctoral student needs, and the range of support provided, both legitimately and well known, and perhaps less legitimately and less well known. This work concentrates in the main on the ‘darkside'

Experiences of the Creative Doctorate:Minstrels and White Lines

Relationships between the expectations of the PhD, creativity and identity are a rich terrain for research, explored here. Doctoral student identity and the expectations of the PhD have been the focus of much previous work, while work on candidates pursuing research in literature and art has focused on tensions in their work, and the conceptual threshold crossings they make during the PhD journey. The research discussed here explores tensions and rich relationships between creativity, identity and success for candidates self-defined as ‘creative’ engaged in doctorates ranging between art or literary practice, and creative work in professional contexts

Modulation of Neural Oscillatory Activity during Dynamic Face Processing

Various neuroimaging and neurophysiological methods have been used to examine neural activation patterns in response to faces. However, much of previous research has relied on static images of faces, which do not allow a complete description of the temporal structure of face-specific neural activities to be made. More recently, insights are emerging from fMRI studies about the neural substrates that underpin our perception of naturalistic dynamic face stimuli, but the temporal and spectral oscillatory activity associated with processing dynamic faces has yet to be fully characterized. Here, we used MEG and beamformer source localization to examine the spatiotemporal profile of neurophysiological oscillatory activity in response to dynamic faces. Source analysis revealed a number of regions showing enhanced activation in response to dynamic relative to static faces in the distributed face network, which were spatially coincident with regions that were previously identified with fMRI. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that perception of realistic dynamic facial stimuli activates a distributed neural network at varying time points facilitated by modulations in low-frequency power within alpha and beta frequency ranges (8-30 Hz). Naturalistic dynamic face stimuli may provide a better means of representing the complex nature of perceiving facial expressions in the real world, and neural oscillatory activity can provide additional insights into the associated neural processes

Postmortem Demonstration of the Source of Pulmonary Thromboembolism: The Importance of the Autopsy

Periprostatic or paravaginal venous thromboses are rarely considered clinically as sites of clot origin in patients with pulmonary thromboembolism. The majority of emboli have been demonstrated to originate in the veins of the legs. This report raises awareness of pelvic vein thrombosis as a potential source of pulmonary embolism that is rarely considered or detected clinically, and which usually requires postmortem examination for recognition. It also reviews the possible routes emboli may take to reach the lungs

Fostering Reading Enjoyment and Achievement in the School Library

Excerpt: In this age of increased accountability through testing and implementation of the Common Core State Standards, the elementary and middle school librarian is often part of the school team working toward enhancing reading achievement among students