The contribution of narrative to the process of supervising PhD students

A set of 444 narratives was collected at seven Swedish universities, during seminars for the continuing education of supervisors. The participants were asked to write down a recollection of a situation including some kind of a complication that they experienced either as supervisors or as doctoral students. The narrators' perception of the focus in the situation was used as the basis for creating categories. It is argued that narratives have considerable potential to sensitise supervisors to aspects of their role, and hence to enhance the quality of supervision.