Students often find the writing up at the end an insurmountable task. The advice to start writing early will lessen this problem. The introduction, research strategies and writing up of ethical issues, might give direction to later chapters, and can be written quite early. If written work is sent to supervisors before a meeting, they are then able to give feedback and encouragement more easily. Students can expect that their supervisors have read the written work when they come for their prearranged supervision sessions, and that it will be criticised constructively. Sometimes supervisors email their comments to students before the meeting. Phillips and Pugh (2005) see the script as a basis for discussion. It is inadvisable to leave writing to the last stage of the research for two reasons: interesting and stimulating ideas will be forgotten and students might run out of time and hence panic. Seeing a chunk of the report in writing will motivate the student to proceed. All through the process, researchers make fieldnotes and memos as often as possible. The usefulness of carrying a small writing pad (as well as a field diary) to jot down ideas that arise cannot be underestimated.

Supervisors are not always gentle and diplomatic in their criticism; some students are hurt by this. The advice is best taken without seeing it as a personal attack but as an academic argument. In any case the relationship between supervisor and student develops over time as they learn about each other’s weaknesses, strengths and idiosyncrasies, and both sides negotiate the process. The best supervisors are able to provide a supportive environment for students, draw out their ideas and are flexible and approachable (Phillips and Pugh, 2005), but direct and explicit in their critique of the research. Even if students lack this type of supervisor, they can still learn. As in everyday life sometimes it is necessary for students to work with individuals to whom they cannot relate on a personal level. This does not mean that the professional relationship need be problematic. Students do have some responsibility to try adapting to a style of tutoring with which they might not be familiar, just as supervisors need to do their best even for students with whom they have no particular friendly relationship.

Supervisors cannot always help their students because they do not have unlimited knowledge about all the facets of the research. Researchers often find other experts who can advise them, and on whose knowledge they can draw without offending the supervisor. Indeed, supervisors often know their own limitations and help students find other experts or advisors. It is useful, however, that students inform their supervisors when they seek advice from persons outside the supervisory relationship.

Students build up relationships with their supervisors on a one-to-one basis. Eventually the student becomes an independent researcher and expert in the field of study, and the supervisor acts as an adviser who takes a critical stance to the work.

There are some other practical points that must be remembered. Students should make an appointment before coming to see their supervisors, if this is at all possible. Of course, open access to supervision is sometimes necessary and always valuable, but supervisors are busy with many other commitments, and an appointment system helps to save time for all parties. Students (and supervisors) should be available and punctual for a pre-arranged meeting, but if appointments have to be cancelled, the cancellation should be made as early as possible. If no other time for necessary supervision can be found, an occasional telephone session might do in an emergency. The main stress should be on regular and quality time of contact. For this, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers need to be exchanged. Sometimes supervisors are reluctant about revealing their home number, and the student should only use this in an emergency – and this is the same for the home telephone number of the student. University e-mails, however, can be very useful for academic exchanges between student and supervisor.

The following is a summary of the roles and tasks of supervisors and students (adapted from Holloway and Walker, 2000).

The responsibilities of supervisors:

• They support and advise students.
  
• They help to ensure that students adhere to ethical principles.
  
• They give feedback such as constructive criticism and motivating praise.
  
• They produce progress reports (if required).
  
• They introduce students to other experts or advisers (if needed).
  
• They make students aware of problems relating to progress and quality of the project.
  
• They encourage students throughout the research process.

The responsibilities of the students:

• They negotiate the process and style of supervision with the supervisor.
  
• They regularly submit written work to the supervisor (as negotiated), generally well before supervisory meetings.
  
• They give progress reports if required.
  
• They negotiate major changes and modifications in the research with the supervisor.
  
• They inform the supervisor of any problems which might interfere with the research project.
  
• They observe ethical principles (which include not plagiarising the work of others).

In addition to the above, postgraduates attend agreed research sessions or training programmes.

Students have either one or two supervisors for their research studies. One supervisor could be an expert in research method, the other might have specialist knowledge in the field of study. Supervisors generally differ in their skills and knowledge but complement each other.

There are a number of arguments for joint supervision. For the student, continuity is ensured when one supervisor is absent or ill. The student’s experience can be enhanced by the support of two supervisors. For the supervisors there is support from colleagues who can discuss the appropriateness of advice about which they are uncertain. New supervisors gain from the guidance of experienced colleagues.

Taught masters degrees in nursing and midwifery proliferate and recruit large numbers of students. Most part-time students work in the clinical setting and wish to carry out research in this environment in order to examine a problem or a major issue relevant to their work. Therefore the supervisor’s experience and knowledge in the clinical setting can be useful.

Single supervision avoids the danger of the conflicting guidance from different people, however many universities see dual supervision in MPhil and PhD studies as important, though undergraduates and MSc/MA students often have a single supervisor.

When examining an educational problem, a student needs at least one supervisor with expertise in the educational field. Undergraduate students do not need several supervisors. As novices to the research process and relatively inexperienced in the clinical setting, they need guidance to the principles of research while the topic is of lesser importance, although it should reflect the student’s interest and advance knowledge in a more limited subject area.

In PhD and MPhil research, students often have a supervisory team to assist continuity in supervision when one supervisor is absent for any reason. To avoid conflicting advice to students, it is, of course, important that joint supervisors have a common ideology about supervision, a similar view about the particular method and topic, and that they stay in contact with each other. Students must be aware of the pitfalls and problems in supervision, because ultimately the responsibility is theirs.

Students often propose ambitious projects in which they intend to use both qualitative and quantitative methods. For short student projects that take less than a year, mixed-methods study might be too time-consuming and the student is often advised to carry out single method studies (see Chapter 16).