Stories return personal narrative ways of knowing to the professional development of doctoral supervisors

Abstract

Storytellers have always known that there is more to a story than ‘just a good yarn’. It is through stories that individuals construct and reconstruct their sense of self as they learn ‘to be’ in the world. Learning through stories is common across a number of professional contexts. However, storied approaches are under-utilised in supervisor professional development programs. This paper argues that telling, receiving, reading, writing and re-writing stories can open to doctoral supervisors a way to negotiate the chaotic pedagogy of becoming and being a doctoral supervisor. Two examples of storytelling – interactive telling and reading of stories of research student experience and supervisor autobiographical writing – illustrate how the art of storytelling can return personal narrative ways of knowing to professional development in today's performance-driven higher degree by research context.

Keywords:

• supervisor development
• stories
• storytelling
• doctoral supervision
• narrative knowing