Student and Supervisor Experiences of Learning and Teaching Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology for Autism Spectrum Disorder Focused Research: A Reflective Approach

Smart and Denman provide invaluable guidance for research students and early career researchers on how to get the most out of their supervisory experience when developing a discursive project examining autism. Based on their own experiences as supervisor and supervisee, they draw out how students and supervisors can make the most from the resources they have access to, the types of projects that might be produced, and reveal similarities and differences between the student’s and supervisor’s perspectives. Finally, they draw attention to key ‘learning thresholds’ that students might experience when using a discursive approach, leading to students feeling lost, particularly around conducting analysis and integrating methodological and applied assumptions. They consider techniques for getting through these moments and achieving successful completion of the research project.