Naming the Game: reconstructing graduate supervision

Abstract This paper describes the authors' work as university staff developers in the troubled terrain of graduate research supervision. While acknowledging that supervision is an unequal power‐filled pedagogical relationship, we assert that it is one in which both student and supervisor have the capacity to act to bring change. With this understanding, we work mainly with research students, sometimes with supervisors, to change their practices to make supervision more enjoyable and successful. A range of strategies for achieving these ends are described here, as well as some outcomes in terms of students' reports of experience. This evidence indicates the effectiveness of teaching students to manage themselves and their supervisors more strategically. However, from a staff development perspective, focusing on students is a short‐term and partial strategy for addressing supervision problems. In the final part of the paper, another potentially useful approach—working with students and supervisors together—is explored.