Problematising “good” HDR supervision: a case study of an international pilot of a on-line HDR supervisor professional development program

There has been considerable discussion in higher degree research (HDR) literature about what constitutes ‘good’ HDR Supervision. The discussion, consciously or unconsciously explores other questions such as ‘What is Research?’ and ‘What is Supervision?’ and in doing so reveals multiple constructs and dissonance across the terrain. The author of this paper has concluded that a curriculum for Higher Degree Research supervision must therefore adopt a constructivist stance in order to portray these multiple possible meanings for ‘good’ research supervision. An Australian university, in an effort to develop an on-line professional development program for its doctoral research supervisors found that it needed firstly to clarify the nature of ‘good’ in good research supervision before embarking on a constructivist curriculum of ‘good’ research supervision.