Learning through Writing: Reconceptualising the Research Supervision Process
Wolff, L. (2010)
International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 22(3): 229–237.
Abstract
This paper seeks to re-conceptualize the research supervision relationship. The literature has tended to view doctoral study in four ways:
(a) as an exercise in self-management,
(b) as a research experience,
© as training for research,
or (d) as an instance of student-centred learning.
Although each of these approaches has merit, they also suffer from conceptual weaknesses. This paper seeks to harness the merits, and minimize the disadvantages, by re-conceptualizing doctoral research as a “writing journey.” The paper utilizes the insights of new rhetoric in linguistic theory to defend a writing-centered conception of supervised research and offers some practical strategies on how it might be put into effect.