Supervising Research of MSc students (2022-I)

Target audience

This course is for GSLS PhD candidates. It is a requirement that you are supervising a MSc student during the time period of the course.

If you are not supervising a student yet, we offer the course Supervising MSc Students: Starter Kit (see the PCC course agenda to find out when this course is scheduled). It is possible to follow the Starter Kit course first, and Supervising Research of MSc Students at a later time point during your PhD when you are actually supervising a student. There is no point in following both courses at the same time.

Following a supervision course is compulsory for all GSLS PhD candidates that will supervise a Master student. This requirement follows the regulations of Utrecht University. You can choose either Supervising MSc Students: Starter Kit or Supervising Research of MSc Students.

If you would like advise which course to follow, please send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl.

Course description

Supervising MSc student research is a complicated process. What is the best way to supervise depends on many factors: the abilities of the student, the type of research, the research phase (the startup, data collection/ analysis, the final writing part) and of course the abilities of the supervisor. In this course, supervisors work on expanding their own repertoire and gaining insights in their own style and possibilities regarding the supervision of MSc student research. We offer tools and guidelines for implementing personal supervising strategies like giving effective feedback, for differentiating supervision to meet students’ needs, for assessing progress, and for dealing with frequently occurring problems such as motivating students, dealing with delay and so on.

This course is aimed at supervisors of MSc students of the GS-LS. Some experience with supervising MSc students is required, in order to be able to reflect on your own supervising behavior during the course. Moreover, the course consists of several assignments in which you put theory into your supervision practice, so we strongly recommend that you have a student during the course.

Learning objectives

After this course:

• You have reflected on your own supervision practice
• You have gained insights in your own strength and development points, but also in those of your MSc student
• You will be able to apply didactical insights (theories) to your own supervision practice
• You have broadened your supervision skills (e.g. coaching & conversation skills, feedback skills, assessment skills)
• You have practiced how to use more effective ways to handle intercultural work situations
• You will be able to deal with difficult situations in your supervision practice from a broader perspective
• You have formulated, implemented, and evaluated plans how to optimize your supervision practice to meet MSc students’ needs
• You have developed a personal supervision plan

Instructional method

This five-session course will focus on placing supervisors' experience from their own day-to-day practice in the context of theory, and exploring its implications. The day-to-day practice of supervisors will be used as a basis of the course to ensure that supervisors will get most out of it. The following assignments provide an idea of how this works:

• Discussing supervision styles and possibilities with peers 
• Conducting a strengths/weaknesses analysis of both supervisor and MSc students
• Talking about mutual expectations with your MSc students
• Assessing progress of your MSc students on both product and process level
• Analyzing challenging situations of supervisors
• Exploring ways how to deal with difficult situations that regularly occur (including role-play)
• Formulating, implementing, and evaluating plans how to optimize your supervision practice
• Developing a supervision plan (how to work towards specific learning objectives in a targeted way)

You will prepare assignments in advance of each session and receive written or oral feedback during the course. At the first session, you will receive the book ‘Supervising PhD Students: A Practical Guide and Toolkit’ by Kearns & Finn.

Course trainers

Dr. Jessica Hegeman, Educational Consultancy & Teacher Development (O&T), Utrecht University. 
Course meeting ‘intercultural communication’: Janneke Dubbelboer (Janneke Dubbelboer Communicatie). 

Group size

10 to 12 participants

Number of credits

1.2 EC

Course schedule

Study load

In addition to the scheduled sessions, you should take into account an extra study load of approximately 15 hours in total. This study load generally consists of homework assignments in preparation for the next session.

Course certificate

You will receive a certificate after actively participating in at least four out of five course sessions.

This course counts as didactic training for your University Teaching Qualification (BKO). 
Learn more about achieving a University Teaching Qualification (BKO).

Cancellation and No-show policy

This course is free for GSLS PhD candidates. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. This is our policy:

• You may cancel free of charge up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After this date you can only cancel if you have a GSLS PhD candidate to replace you in the course. Send the name and contact information of your replacement to pcc@uu.nl, at least 2 working days before the start of the course;
• We expect that you actively attend the full course, but at least 80%. It is mandatory to attend the first session. If you are absent the first session you cannot follow the remaining of the course;
• Not meeting the above requirements means you will be charged a no-show fee (€ 313). We will send the invoice after the course has ended. We are unable to make any exceptions, unless you have a valid reason (i.e., illness or death in the family 1^st/2^nd degree or partner). Your supervisor has to send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl indicating the reason.

Unfortunately we don’t offer this course for participants not part of the GSLS. Our courses tend to be fully booked by GSLS PhD candidates.