Enhancing feedback practices within PhD supervision: a qualitative framework synthesis of the literature

Figures & data

Table 1. Conceptual framework for analysis of feedback within the included literature.

Framework categories	Conceptualised from…	Including …	Key related concepts from feedback literature
Contexts of feedback practices	Social and cultural influences	Disciplinary cultures, PhD contexts, tacit criteria, milestones and standards	This aligns with work on feedback cultures (Watling et al. 2013) and includes Hattie and Timperley (2007) “feed up”
How feedback is enacted	Interpersonal aspects	Negotiation, credibility judgements, supervision team dynamics, peers, power	This mostly aligns with relationship views of feedback (Bing-You et al. 2018)
Dynamics of feedback relationships	Materialities	Written comments, embodied and spoken comments, spaces, technologies, avoidances/absences, emotions	This encompasses both Hattie and Timperley (2007) task and process foci of feedback; a sociomaterial approach holds as more entangled so they are not separated. Dialogic and interactional views of feedback (Steen-Utheim and Wittek 2017) are partly represented here but also in interpersonal aspects above
What the supervisors and candidates bring to feedback enactments	Personal perspectives and influences	Prior experiences, traits, conceptions	This aligns with Hattie and Timperley (2007) self-regulation orientation and similar, including feedback literacy (Carless and Boud 2018)
Feedback as a temporal practice	Temporalities, including multiple impacts and outcomes on learning	Development of supervisor and candidate, feedback changing over time, impacts outside candidature	The outcomes (or not) of feedback on candidates and supervisors, as revealed over time – encompasses Boud and Molloy (2013) feedback by design and the effects of Hattie and Timperley (2007) “feed forward”

Figure 1. Study selection processes.

Table 2. Overview of thematic analysis.

Category	Subthemes
Contexts of feedback practices	National influences Disciplinary influences Institutional influences
How feedback is enacted	Talk Text Formal reporting processes
Dynamics of feedback relationships	Power in feedback relationships Emotional responses Feedback beyond the supervisory dyad
What the supervisors and candidates bring to feedback enactments
Feedback as a temporal practice	Reflections prompted by feedback enactments Timing of comments How feedback enactments changed over time

Table 3. Proposed feedback pedagogical strategies within doctoral supervision.

Origin of observation	Useful feedback pedagogical strategies
Represented within the included studies in the framework synthesis	Collaborative feedback relationships founded on clear expectations and mutual respect Generative talk, informed by texts Orientation and integration into the discipline Opportunities for sophisticated feedback enactments through strong supervisor-candidate relationships Extensive and multi-purposed commentary on work Multiple perspectives on candidate work Explicit orientation to standards
Reported by wider feedback literature (not represented within review studies)	Focus on candidate goal-setting to frame feedback (Kurtz, Draper, and Silverman 2005) Explicitly developing independence through building ability to judge work of self and peers (Tai et al. 2018) Establishing expectations about feedback and orientation on how to learn through seeking and using feedback (Carless and Boud 2018) Feedback as a process for learning to learn (Butler and Winne 1995) Attending to emotions through supervisors sharing own challenges (Molloy and Bearman 2019; Johnson, Keating, and Molloy 2020) Aligning with (and scaffolding for) authentic academic practices (Carless, Jung, and Li 2023)

Table 4. Institutional support for supervisors.

Challenging feedback practices described in this review	Suggested means for institutions to counter these
An exclusive supervisor-candidate dyad means that the student lacks sufficient alternative perspectives on their work	Multi-supervisory teams, possibly including supervisors with process expertise (Wisker et al. 2003; Olmos-López and Sunderland 2017) Doctoral peer groups (Maher et al. 2008) Supervisor and candidate education on promoting candidates’ capacity to seek and use feedback information (Carless and Boud 2018)
Feedback does not develop candidate independence and induces appeasement rather than learning	Educate supervisors about goal-oriented feedback models (Kurtz, Draper, and Silverman 2005) Supervision training on independence-building feedback pedagogy (e.g. “evaluative judgement” (Boud et al. 2018; Tai et al. 2018)) This framework synthesis proposes establishing a process for reviewing feedback processes to assist with managing power dynamics

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