Vanishing Point - or Meeting in the Middle? Student/Supervisor Transformation in a Self-Study Thesis

This account explores the divergent perspectives of supervisor and student interacting in self-study research, showing how both participants were transformed by the experience. Although both supervisor and student had faced similar problems as mature students engaging in doctoral study, and both possessed strong convictions about their chosen paths, their focus was very different. The student, being visually creative, was investigating the value of integrated arts as a transformational learning medium; the supervisor, from a linguistics background, was focused on exploring the nature of written communication. The supervisor/student relationship comprises a complex nexus of interconnections between persons, material objects, times and places: it is never static, but always emerging, with the relationship often ending up being more collegial than at first, as with the authors of this paper. In the counterpoint dialogue presented by student and supervisor, it can be seen that both learned from each other: the student, the rigours of structuring a passionate argument intellectually; the supervisor, to express an intellectual argument more personally. Both authors were transformed by the supervisor/student interaction: the supervisor, in rediscovering the value of interpersonal communication; the student, in mastering a research approach which did justice to her belief in the creative power of the arts. The value of engaging with perspectives which initially appear to be irreconcilable is not just to ‘learn new things’, but to push the inner limits of our perspectives, transforming not only the ways in which we perceive things, but the ways in which we learn.