Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the education sector in many ways, and almost three hundred Ph.D. supervisors in Norway were examined in this case study. The backdrop for the study is that the pandemic has presented an urgent need for a better knowledge base to understand the professional, social, and existential conditions for doctoral supervisors when society is shut down for an extended period. This explorative case study examined what the doctoral supervisors experienced when home office, digital teaching, and digital supervision suddenly replaced physical presence in the workplace (more or less) from March 12, 2020 to December 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-methods research, formative dialog research, and case study design was applied to try to bridge the conceptual and contextual understanding of this phenomenon. The main data sources were a survey (N = 298, 48% women, 52% men) and semi-structured interviews (with eight Ph.D. supervisors). Supplementary data collection was based on formative dialog research and comprised field dialog (four Ph.D. supervision seminars), one focus group (n = 5), and document analysis of Ph.D. policy documents and seminar evaluations (N = 6). The explorative case study found that the Ph.D. supervisors had several challenges during the pandemic – both professionally and personally. They experienced that their digital supervision with their PhD-fellows through e.g. Teams and Zoom were easy and effective, but sometimes lacked sufficient quality. They felt that the digital communication with their PhD-candidates around more psycho-social aspect was challenging and experienced several also research-related challenges with their PhD’s during the pandemic. PhD-supervisors with extensive use of home office over a long period of time, this situation created new premises for the frame factors for their job. These changed frame factors impeded both their own research capacity, their ability to follow up their PhD’s and their ability to carry out other job duties. Even if the Ph.D. supervisors experienced support during the pandemic, it seems like it entailed incremental measures that have not been sufficient. The Ph.D. regulations were created before the pandemic under normal conditions for normal conditions, but it appears that no substantial adjustments have been made for these extraordinary pandemic conditions in which frame factors attached to new premises for doctoral supervision have changed the premises for their professional role as academics and PhD-supervisors. This has been particularly critical for those female PhD-supervisors with own children, who have experienced lock downs, social distancing, home office, home school, quarantine for themselves and their children, COVID 19-sickness, etc. in this slow-motion disaster for up to 20 months. Therefore, results from the case study indicate it is more important than ever to understand the gap between formulation, -transformation, and realization arena when it comes to the distinction between incremental, semi-structural changes and fundamental changes in Ph.D. regulations and guidelines caused by societal crises. Even if support from employer has been offered, it seems like the overall Ph.D. guidelines, regulations, and supervision norms remained unchanged in the transformation arena (meso-level) during the pandemic, which calls for better crisis preparedness on a doctoral level in the years to come.

Keywords:

PhD-supervisors, Experiences, COVID 19, Supervision, PhD-fellows.