PhDSciNet Interview 16: Here Comes the Supervisor, Ready for Battle!

Historical interview: the following preserves the research experiences and personal views expressed in the original manuscript.

Discussing the negotiations between supervisors and students

We are used to students complaining about supervisors, but what kinds of students do supervisors dislike most?

Student depression is repeatedly reported. How do supervisors understand it, and how do they try to prevent and address it?

Will supervisors meet student requests that go beyond reasonable boundaries?

The relationship between supervisors and students resembles Tom and Jerry. Students are often cautious and sensitive, feeling as though they are walking on thin ice around their supervisors and wishing to avoid them. Supervisors seem to have the initiative, yet disappointing students can leave them unsure whether to laugh or cry, shaking their heads and sighing. Today, three supervisors share their perspectives on this ongoing negotiation.

Introducing this issue’s guests:

Little Shrimp Online: based in Beijing, with twelve years of graduate supervision. Main research areas: signal processing, the Internet of Things, and related fields.

Nicolas Cage: based in the interior of eastern China, with two years of supervision. Main research area: food processing.

Astro Boy: based in the Yangtze River Delta, with two years of graduate supervision. Main research areas: cancer drug carriers, functional foods, and related fields.

[Negotiating with students who are inactive or procrastinate]

What kinds of students make you angry?

Little Shrimp Online: what makes me angriest is a student’s lackadaisical attitude. People have different levels of ability, but laziness or a careless attitude makes me unhappy. Students have positive and negative sides; nobody performs well or poorly all the time. What frustrates me is having to repeat things many times and push for progress. When I arrange something, I generally have expectations, so students need to work according to the laboratory schedule. Some procrastinate and miss deadlines, and that makes me unhappy.

Every student has inactive periods, and people’s motivation fluctuates. Can you accept occasional inactivity?

Little Shrimp Online: yes. It is normal to have personal matters, and I encourage students to deal with them first. But maintaining that attitude over a long period is not good. A laboratory needs to sustain its atmosphere. When everyone is serious and actively working, you can feel a good atmosphere as soon as you enter. One or two students who sit there without working and do other things can drag down the whole laboratory’s atmosphere. That makes me unhappy. Once or twice is fine, but if it continues, I need to have a serious conversation about the attitude. One of my students had to extend their studies because of inactivity. Students may have different abilities because they have not learned certain things, but they should maintain a positive attitude rather than being too lackadaisical.

[Negotiating with students who do not communicate or take responsibility]

Nicolas Cage: last year, a jointly trained student came here to do experiments and was very inactive, drifting in at ten in the morning. I repeatedly said they should arrive before nine. They always agreed but rarely arrived before ten. The project was relatively simple and could have generated plenty of data if they worked on it, yet the data were always sparse. The experimental design would omit samples, or a bottle or sterilizer would be broken; problems kept occurring. Usually, a month later they would tell me the experiment had failed and needed repeating. I discussed what to do after every experiment, but in practice there was no feedback or adjustment, followed by another failure.

Around graduation, the first half of 2020 was heavily affected by the pandemic, and students were generally writing their theses at home. I helped revise the paper. Around May or June, I printed every graduation document and took them to the supervisor for signatures. I asked the student to tell me before leaving and let me know when they found a job and where. I was not even their supervisor and had only worked with them for half a year. Yet they left without a word after graduating. I suggested that their results might be organized into a patent, and they readily agreed, but there was no news afterward. I found that upsetting and disrespectful.

Was that due to problems in communication between you and the student?

Nicolas Cage: it was not that we never talked, but sometimes when I asked about things, I felt the student was withholding information. Beyond academic work, we often discussed life and plans after graduation, but they did not seem keen to share those matters.

When interacting with other students, they were perhaps not very outgoing, but seemed reasonably comfortable.

Astro Boy: some students do not see research as part of their future, so they may seem less enthusiastic. They only want to write the thesis, graduate, and be done. They may not follow up on deeper mechanisms or patents because they think, “I have graduated; now I will go to work.”

Nicolas Cage: that is certainly a major reason. My understanding is that, as a student on a team, you did this work and are expected to take responsibility for it.

In the food industry, many students move to other fields after their master’s degree rather than doing related work. Once they complete experiments and their thesis, some think the work no longer concerns them. I see that as failing to take responsibility.

Are there students who arrive late and leave late? Or students who work fewer hours but produce more?

Nicolas Cage: yes. Two PhD students in our team arrive late but are highly efficient. Their doctoral supervisor has administrative duties and no time to manage them, so they do the work and publish papers entirely themselves.

Little Shrimp Online: I have not supervised many students like that. Most must invest a certain amount of effort and time to obtain results. Some are intellectually quick and interested in the subject, however, and can master it faster.

[Negotiating with students who give up quickly or fabricate data]

Astro Boy: I distinguish frustration from anger. In the first category, I am worried for students who do not understand our intentions. Sometimes I give a student a project I have investigated deeply and believe is feasible, but after only a short time—perhaps a few days without success—they want to give up. I become anxious for them. The supervisor has researched it thoroughly, and following the steps should yield results. If it does not work, they should investigate why rather than abandon it.

Now I will describe something that truly made me angry. A jointly supervised student was involved in fabricating data, which made me lose my temper.

The student was doing cell experiments. Normally, the error bars in such experiments should be fairly large: ours can be 5–10%, or even 15%. This student’s were basically 0.1%, so when I saw them, I knew they were fabricated. It was the student’s first cell experiment; because the data were imperfect, they made data up. I was very angry because I find that completely unacceptable. I later stopped supervising the student. It is the incident that has angered me most since becoming a supervisor, and I still cannot feel calm about it.

Editorial check: error bars may represent a standard deviation, standard error, or confidence interval and must be interpreted alongside independent sample size, replication, and raw data. A magnitude of “0.1%” alone does not establish data fabrication.

[The cat-and-mouse game of attendance]

Supervisors generally dislike inactive students. What working hours do you expect?

Astro Boy: our stated hours are 8:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night, but leaving earlier is not really a problem. We have no clocking-in system; it is a recommendation. Research results are usually proportional to time invested. Most beginners do not understand much and can only accumulate enough knowledge for papers or results by spending time. A few are exceptionally gifted, but they are rare, so I think time matters. We cannot demand too much, however. Students have their own aspirations and may not pursue academia; we should respect them, even though we hope they invest more time.

Little Shrimp Online: our group clocks in, following an old university tradition. It is not just us; the whole school does it. It is not quite “996,” but students must clock in at least five days a week, across three daily periods: morning, afternoon, and evening. They are usually there in the evening anyway. Most are there on Saturdays too, because sometimes I am.

[Students in North America would weep on hearing this.]

Little Shrimp Online: from a human perspective, I have reservations about the system too. But that is the atmosphere across the school, and neighboring laboratories are the same. Almost every laboratory on our floor uses it, and you must scan a fingerprint or face and clock in to enter. There is little we can do.

Are students always working in the laboratory, or can they do personal things?

Little Shrimp Online: they are generally working. Our laboratory layout puts the supervisor at the back and students in front, so what they do is fairly visible. They probably do not dare to do much else and are generally busy.

Nicolas Cage: we also clock in, from nine in the morning to nine at night, six days a week. I feel it is mostly a formality to encourage students. In practice, going out to deal with something is fine as long as they let us know.

Do students not complain about having to clock in?

Little Shrimp Online: mostly, they do not really dare complain. Ha ha.

Nicolas Cage: it is all right. We often play badminton or basketball with the male students, and I have not heard much objection from them.

Can inactivity be changed?

Little Shrimp Online: in terms of personality, someone who tends toward inactivity is unlikely to change greatly within two years and may still have a relatively lackadaisical attitude at graduation. Do not expect to change their personality. I cannot even change my own, much less someone else’s. Still, retain expectations for them, hoping they reach a more active state, and use goals and deadlines to impose some constraints. Meeting those limits may not mean they are no longer inactive, but it can bring some improvement.

[Negotiating psychological pressures]

Recent years have brought repeated reports of student depression and even suicide, possibly connected with supervisors. How do supervisors view this?

Little Shrimp Online: universities are increasingly taking this seriously. We regularly receive manuals for recording conversations with students, particularly psychological matters beyond academic work. Supervisors even have electronic check-ins—you may not have heard of that—to record students’ current psychological state. In recent years, attention to student mental health has grown not just at one university but throughout education. That is good: supervisors make an effort, and policy and universities give it more attention. Students certainly benefit, because they are not simply at university as employees, and the supervisor–student relationship cannot be treated entirely as employment.

Personally, once I have recruited a student into the group, I naturally hope they perform better. If they have psychological difficulties with procrastination or mild depression, perhaps the best approach is communication: keep talking with and encouraging them to lessen the pressure.

As supervisors, we should try to give students the expectation that we believe they can succeed. That trust is the best way to motivate them and help them meet expectations. I call it an “expectation full of trust.” When assigning a project, make the student believe you genuinely think they can accomplish it. This is trust rather than pressure. Feeling trusted, expected to succeed, and recognized can help students break out of depression or negative emotions.

Medical content check: depression involves genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors and cannot simply be attributed to weak resilience. A supervisor’s trust and support matter, but do not replace professional assessment and treatment.

Have you ever consciously or unconsciously put students under pressure?

Little Shrimp Online: certainly. When I have project pressure, it passes from me to students, who can feel it. But pressure is not necessarily bad; all emotions can provide motivation.

When students die by suicide, is it because supervisors have not conveyed pressure appropriately, or because students’ ability to bear it is too weak?

Little Shrimp Online: I think there are problems on both sides. First, if a supervisor notices such psychological difficulties, they should tell the student the degree is not so important. Many years ago, I supervised a woman from a financially disadvantaged family who had a poor attitude toward research and no interest in it, and experienced considerable pressure. I told her that academic work is only one part of life; failing to finish would not ruin everything, and there was no need to take extreme action. Doing so would defeat the purpose of graduate study, which is a better future and development. If your body and health are not protected, the degree has no meaning either.

On the supervisor’s side, do not impose absolute pressure on students; under that pressure they will not produce good work. Instead, offer expectations full of trust and a more comfortable emotional environment. People tend to align themselves with authority, and in that process students can meet your expectations and complete tasks. After all, ours is not entirely an employment relationship but a supervisor–student one.

On the student’s side, some do have relatively weak psychological resilience. Academic learning is only one part of graduate study; beyond it, we should explore knowledge in many areas. I recommend reading groups to my students and give them membership cards when they graduate. We should not put all our energy into academic work but understand ourselves from a broader perspective.

But under research pressure, students sometimes have no desire to join other social activities. Their inner world can become filled with their supervisor’s evaluations, making broader development even harder. What can they do?

Little Shrimp Online: certainly. I often eat with students, and they may be bolder at meals. They tell me that receiving a message from me after nine or ten at night makes their heart jump. Sometimes I think of something and send a message asking them to do or look up something. I was a PhD student too, and looking back, I recognize this is not ideal.

It is inevitable that, for a time, pressure from you will make students uncomfortable or unhappy. Let them feel the pressure openly rather than concealing it, and let them understand that you share it and are working alongside them. But it must not continue too long. The moment they achieve even a small result, recognize it through words or financial support, provide encouragement, and give them an outlet to release some pressure.

[A small insight: when you feel pressure from your supervisor, try to understand it as shared pressure and a problem you are facing together.]

Nicolas Cage: I have not yet encountered students with signs of depression. When I feel a student is particularly lacking in some area, I instinctively try to help them move forward or improve.

With the student I mentioned earlier, I tried talking about things beyond research but never really reached them, which I regret because I did not help. Another student did better and proactively told me they felt unable to adapt to the environment. I then invited them to meals and group activities to help reduce their fear.

Students are often at a psychological disadvantage and may be sensitive or overthink conversations. Do supervisors need communication skills?

Nicolas Cage: those skills may indeed be important. The inherent hierarchy prevents us from quickly reaching students emotionally. Students who are particularly difficult to communicate with certainly require communication skills.

For example, students were home for the Lunar New Year this year, and we know they are less efficient there. Begin cheerfully: “How is the holiday going? When are you returning?” Then ask, “How is the paper coming along?” We do not have especially high expectations, because the holiday is for relaxing and we do not insist on completion. It is simply a reminder and a little pressure.

Some students may wonder whether they have done poorly or made the supervisor unhappy. Not necessarily: the supervisor knows roughly where you stand and has a baseline. Doing nothing may be understandable; completing the task will be appreciated.

[A small reminder: sometimes you can take your supervisor’s questions more calmly. Relax: more trust, less guessing.]

Astro Boy: adjusting supervisors’ expectations can reduce pressure on both sides. When I began supervising, I treated everyone equally, setting the same demands and expectations. But some students do not intend to pursue research; they simply want a degree, then to graduate and work. Academia and industry are both good directions and can both contribute to society.

When I first began, however, I thought every student should be trained for academia. I have since changed. Each student has their own personality and aspirations, so we cannot make identical demands. We should communicate and coordinate according to the individual’s circumstances to avoid such problems.

[Negotiating students’ small strategies]

Can supervisors see when students try to be clever? Does showing vulnerability or emphasizing hardship win greater favor?

Little Shrimp Online: certainly. It is like teaching from a platform: you can clearly see which students are reading a book under the desk or looking at a phone. We have all been through that stage, so students’ little strategies are fairly obvious. Whether there should be special consideration depends on an objective evaluation system built around the specific work, goals, and achievements.

If students meet requirements, work hard, and complete the specified tasks and goals within the agreed time, I do not mind a little strategizing or deliberately expose it. If they have not completed the task, however, we need a serious conversation, whether or not they were trying to be clever.

Suppose a student badly needs money and says, “If the paper is published, I can apply for a scholarship. Could you revise my paper first?” or “Could you add me as second author?” Would you meet that request?

Little Shrimp Online: I would try. Adding someone as second author may be difficult because the original authors’ views must be respected, and the real second author must be a student actually working on the project. That cannot be changed. But adding someone from fourth author onward may be possible, and I would try to meet their scholarship and other needs.

Editorial check: authorship should follow the target journal’s contribution and accountability criteria; financial need alone does not qualify someone for authorship. Under the ICMJE recommendations, authors must meet all four requirements: substantial contribution, important writing or review, final approval, and accountability.

Is that unfair to students who quietly work very hard on their own projects?

Little Shrimp Online: of course it can be. But an objective evaluation system allows you to understand each student’s results and effort. If the student meets basic requirements and has a specific need, you can try to help with that particular request. Students who genuinely contribute receive greater scope for advancement or benefit, including later attention: recommending them in their field or helping them find jobs at graduation, for example. Overall, supervisors must ensure fairness. If a student trying to gain an advantage has not even met the objective baseline, then I cannot help.

Nicolas Cage: it is clear what your own students are like. Judge what they deserve by their actual contribution and work, and meet requests when possible without affecting others. In large groups, however, supervisors may not be able to attend to everything, so that tactic may work somewhat better.

Astro Boy: students should minimize such strategies. Only solid work brings substantial rewards in the end, and the same applies after entering wider society.

Having heard the supervisors’ thoughts, do you now understand the supervisor–student relationship more fully? You are welcome to leave comments below. Let us build a harmonious research environment together!

Supervisors: Little Shrimp Online, Nicolas Cage, Astro Boy

Editor: Honey Peach Oolong

Interview: Calorie, Fantuan

Audio recording: Calorie

Additional sources checked

Nature journal: Statistical reporting requirements

US National Institute of Mental Health: Depression

ICMJE: Defining authors and contributors