The object of this event was to explore pedagogic issues arising from the training of postgraduate students within and beyond MA research training modules. For both funding and cultural reasons, matters to do with research students are commonly bracketed under ‘research’. This symposium took as its starting place the idea that the training of postgraduate students is at one and the same time a matter of pedagogy – that MA curriculum, assessment, and teaching methods are as worthy of developmental and critical attention as are those experienced by undergraduates, and that transition, preparedness, and retention are equally pressing concerns. Since research training is also the gateway to the profession, the experience of postgraduate students has an intimate bearing on the future shape of the subject.
The day was lightly structured so as to enable dialogue and exchange of experience between colleagues from different institutions. Fourteen colleagues, representing eleven different institutions, took part. Participants were encouraged to think holistically about the responsibilities of departments and postgraduate tutors towards students, towards scholarship, and towards the future of the discipline.
Participants were asked to come prepared to speak about the primary issues in their own department, for example:
- • Why are postgraduates important to your department?
- • What kind of training do you offer postgraduates?
- • How do you see postgraduates featuring in your department?
- • What are the trends in postgraduate admissions?
During the course of the day participants were invited to reflect on the responsibilities of programmes towards students, scholarship, and the future of the discipline.
Dr Ashley Tauchert (Exeter) had been asked to present a focus to open the discussion. Her presentation launched a number of recurrent themes. Much of her presentation concerned the speed of transition into postgraduate programmes. Deadlines were harsh, and there was little time to induct students who arrived from a variety of courses and backgrounds. Postgraduate students were a diverse body, and their transition needs were not usually given as much attention as those of undergraduates. At the same time there was a growing gap between departments’ expectations and the actual mix of skills and knowledge brought by students entering programmes. Injecting research competence was more of a problem with taught MA students than with those destined for research programmes. Dr Tauchert saw the struggle of students in cultural transition as opening up fundamental questions about the nature of the discipline. Thus for example many overseas students – themselves inclined to celebrate cultural tradition – were distressed and disorientated by the combative nature of British English studies. A culture gap yawned where staff tended to want to undo all that had been done in the name of English Studies, and expected students to write like themselves.
A further set of questions which flowed on through the day concerned the tension between breadth and research specialisation. If we sought a healthy research culture, what were we to make of specialisation – or of those students who wanted to study ‘English’ rather than a specialism? Broad interests tend not to attract funding, so are not ‘owned’ as are sub-fields. All this led some to a dystopian fantasy that English would fragment as increasingly postgraduates were sucked into the discourse of the academic career. What happened to those (some of them mature students) who were seeking a broad education and had no ambitions for professional scholarship? Many of the most academically able undergraduates, it was claimed, did not seek to go into postgraduate work, perhaps no longer seeing this as a space for building on their first degree in any but a professional sense. If we were not to breed up a self perpetuating elite we had to become better at communicating the benefits of postgraduate work and perhaps find ways of celebrating more appreciative forms of study. Thus in the MA should we seek to keep English people together, or siphon off specialists? We also had to bear in mind the workload implications of running different simultaneous MA schemes, even though colleagues generally welcomed the opportunity to work on them.
It was also felt that we owed it to those who did have their eyes on an academic career to raise their awareness of what is involved in a contemporary academic job. While avoiding ‘spoonfeeding’, there is a need to explain the RAE, the dual support system, etc. All the while, participants felt, there was a tension between the pressure to offer students training and the need to help them become independent. Yet arguably professionalization could be seen as playing a part in levelling access, even though a lot of the time it meant HEIs were re-inventing the wheel in terms of PDP, competencies, and training needs. Some training can be done at a generic, faculty level, but many research tasks require the use of very specific tools. ‘Training’ does not in fact have to be equated with standardisation. An interesting example was cited of a weekly seminar for all postgraduates addressed by specialists who gave insight into the demands and methodologies of their particular area
At the end it was recognised that utilitarian pressures were coming from students too. English had to get the message through about the value of postgraduate study and the employability of those with higher qualifications. One closing suggestion was that the Subject Centre place on its website a document identifying postgraduate attributes. This would not be intended as a benchmark, but as a resource for departments to customise according to their needs.
