Feedback from supervisors

Find out about the feedback you can expect to receive.

It is the role of supervisors to evaluate your progress and to provide you with adequate and timely feedback throughout your candidature.

Discussing progress

Supervisors should discuss your progress with you in meetings. They should:

• Provide you with constructive feedback about your work
• make you aware of inadequate progress or poor work
• suggest ways of addressing any problems and of how you might go about developing your knowledge and skills.

During your provisional registration, supervisors may suggest that you undertake some coursework if they think this would be helpful to developing your research proposal.

Progress reports

Progress reporting provides another way for supervisors to comment on your progress and affirm the goals you have achieved. They will also identify any problems you may be having.

Written feedback on reports and thesis drafts

Supervisors will provide written feedback on your work. Note that supervisors will not always be able to return work to you immediately (especially if you have written a lot). As a guide, you should get feedback within:

• two weeks for relatively short pieces of work
• a maximum of four weeks for substantial thesis drafts.

Make sure your supervisors know when you are likely to provide them with work to read so they can factor this into their workload. Remember, they will also be supervising other students, teaching classes and carrying out their own research.