Preliminary study on the influence of collaboration on the success and efficiency of postgraduate students

Postgraduate research calls for a novel contribution to the existing literature, which should be made independently by the researcher. In many institutions, the traditional approach does not encourage or promote collaboration with others as it is thought that a student of higher education should be able to function independently. This paper argues that postgraduate students could be more successful through increased collaboration with both other PhD students and their supervisor. This proposition is supported by a survey, which shows that students are highly in favour of increasing the extent of their collaboration with others. It is envisaged that collaboration should take place from the early stages of a PhD in the form of mentoring and working closely with a supervisor to the later stages, where experience enables guidance of others to more efficient methods and analysis techniques. Increased collaboration can also provide sidebenefits such as better communication and leadership skills.Kristy L. Hansen, Morteza Shokri-Ghasabeh, Dorothy Missingha