Adopting coaching for doctoral supervision: opportunities and challenges for HRD

Coaching has become a popular form of HRD intervention. One HRD context, which has yet to embrace this, however is that of doctoral supervision. Although the relevance of coaching to doctoral supervision has been noted, research into it remains very limited, and there is a lack of clarity on how it could be implemented and the skills it would require. This reflects a broader lack of pedagogical thinking about doctoral supervision in universities and consequent paucity of HRD interventions to support it. This article addresses these gaps through reporting on stage one of an on-going research project which assessed the applicability of an existing model of coaching, to doctoral supervision. Building on Cook's model, a new Collaborative Action for Doctoral Supervision model of coaching is proposed that identifies for supervisors and students individual and shared responsibilities and skills required for effective supervision. The article argues that a shift in HRD in relation to doctoral supervision will be necessary if the benefits of adopting this coaching model are to be realized.