Abstract

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) journey is a journey from a candidate to a full blown researcher and academic. This journey can take a minimum of three to maximum of eight years in the case of Zimbabwe Open University. For most of the journey the research supervisor will ‘represent’ the university to the candidate. He/she is the most frequent contact and will be responsible for ensuring that the candidate does the things that his/her institution expects of him/her. The purpose of this paper is to expose, through reflective self-study the relationship between my PhD supervisor and I as well as the role he played in the three years of my study. In this qualitative self-study data was generated from my journal entries on meetings held with my supervisors, the emails through which we communicated; feedback given on different submissions at different stages of my study and the candidate-supervisor relationship which emanated from the communications. The findings reveal that the strong relationship which was between me and my supervisor played a critical role in enabling me to complete my study in the shortest possible time.

Keywords

Doctor of philosophy, PhD candidate, PhD supervisor, reflective thinking, relationship