Supervision

All master students are entitled to a supervisor on their thesis and have to commit themselves to the guidelines set for the supervision.

The student is entitled to 50 hours of supervision in total. If two students are writing a thesis together the total is 53 hours of supervision.

Internal and external supervisor

The student must always have an internal supervisor. Excemptions are made if there are no competence at the Department of Psychology in the chosen subject for the thesis.

Approval of the supervisor

The supervisor has to be approved by the Programme Council. All students have to fill in an electronic application form for approval of supervisor. Use your username and password to log on to the application.

Supervisor and co-supervisor

In some cases it is convenient to have a co-supervisor. The student is entitled to 50 hours of supervision in total, and the supervisors have to make an arrangement to divide these hours.The normal division is 35/15.

Supervision agreement

The student and supervisor(s) must sign a supervision agreement. This agreement is to be handed in to the administrative coordinator of the programme. If you have internal supervisor(s) you have to make sure both you and your supervisor have a copy of the agreement. In case of an external supervisor the administrative coordinator will send out information together with a copy of the agreement directly to the supervisor.

The supervisor's duties:

• sign a supervision agreement with the student

• the supervisor has to act according to the ethical guidelines set by the University of Oslo.

• inform the student about the format the supervision will take, and suggest a distribution of the supervision hours up until the standard deadline for submission of the thesis.

• give advice on the topic and research question

• discuss the research design, methdology and ethical issues

• discuss the structure of the thesis

• give notice if absent over longer periods of time or in the period just before submittal of the thesis

• discuss serious cooperation issues with the department

• discuss "ownership" of the data and authorship on publications

• provide supervision on the literature review and the project description

• read and approve the literature review. The result of this process should be sent to the administrative coordinator of the program as well as to the student

• provide the set amount of hours for supervision. The hours set include preparation and reading time as well.

The student's duties:

• fill out the supervision agreement and make sure that both the student and the supervisor(s) have signed the agreement. Hand in the agreement to the administrative coordinator.

• come prepared to the meetings with the supervisor

• give notice if unable to attend the meeting with the supervisor

• notify the department (programme director or administrative coordinator) if serious cooperation issues occur

• stick to the rules set by the department/programme regarding the thesis

• hand in the literature review, the project description and the thesis by the set deadlines

The termination of an agreement or change of supervisor

The supervision agreement terminates when any of the following pertain:

• the student's thesis has been censured by the commision
• the student has had 50 hours of supervision
• the student loses his place on the programme
• the student withdraws from the programme
• the student has spent more than two semesters on their thesis*

There are many reasons why problems may occur between student and supervisor. If conflicts of interest should occur, please notify the programme director Tim Brennen.

* If the supervisor is unavailable for longer periods of time the Department of Psychology will endeavour to help the student make other arrangements.