Assessing the Role of Emotional Intelligence in effective doctoral supervision in a UK higher education context

Benouadah Senouci, Khadidja (2023) Assessing the Role of Emotional Intelligence in effective doctoral supervision in a UK higher education context. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The concept of Emotional intelligence (EI) has gained significant attention from several fields such as business, leadership and health care given the role it has on individuals and team performance (Boyatzis and Soler, 2012; Christianson, 2020). In the field of higher education (HE), pursuing a PhD is emotionally charged, especially for international students. Although the majority of the work on EI relates to business and management, which found that EI improves performance and individual satisfaction, there is a growing body of work that explores EI in an educational context (Vandervoort, 2006; Lee, 2008; Gilar-Corbi et al., 2018; Gunasekera et al., 2021). Despite the increased number of studies on EI in education, these studies have not thoroughly examined the ways in which EI manifests itself within the context of doctoral supervision relationships. This study aims to address this gap and look at EI from educational and linguistic perspectives. The aim of this study is to gain insights into how EI is portrayed through the experiences and viewpoints of both (UK-based) international students and supervisors. The study aims to understand how these experiences shape their perspectives on the role of EI in doctoral supervision and its impact on the supervisory relationship, both personally and academically. The field of EI is thus examined, here, from a linguistic perspective: this differs from previous EI- related studies, which are primarily psychological in focus. The study follows a mixed method approach, where data collection involves qualitative questionnaires and semi- structured interviews with 8 Algerian international PhD students and 5 UK-based supervisors. The data is analysed using a mixture of methods, namely, Thematic Analysis (TA) of the interview and questionnaire data, and Corpus Linguistic (CL) analysis of interview data, with close reading of some of the language used. The findings reveal that participants’ understanding of EI varied from a lack of awareness to partial knowledge (with some having researched the topic previously). The findings also reveal the PhD to be perceived as a journey akin to an emotional roller coaster and (components of) EI to be a positive means of tackling students’ struggles, including stress, anxiety, and a sense of isolation. In the doctoral supervision context, EI takes various forms according to students’ and supervisors’ perspectives and experiences.