A review of the Australian honours student experience: a new framework for understanding research supervision

Although it is an established pathway into doctoral study, there appears to be a paucity of research on the area of honours student experience and supervision of honours students in Australia. This paper reports on the findings of a scoping review, that identified the literature from 2003 to 2023 on the experiences of honours students in Australia. In doing so, the review analysed 10 papers that discuss the support of Australian honours students. The review provides clear, research-based guidelines for supervisors of honours students, to support high-quality supervision of honours students. The review provides information about supporting students, including the frameworks reported in the research literature. It develops a framework that brings together the findings of the field, to provide a tool for supervisors of honours students. Although necessarily limited to Australia, this framework has relevance to jurisdictions with similar honours programmes.