Spotlight on the Postgraduate students SIG

The UKAT Postgraduate Special Interest Group (SIG) exists to champion the cause of taught postgraduate (PGT) students and those advising them.  We challenge the presumption that PGT tutoring and advising is the same as that for undergraduates. We currently have 69 members representing 31 institutions from across the UK and would welcome others to join us.

Our Areas of Interest

The SIG’s foci are informed by members’ own passions and by understanding institutional needs. They were decided after considering responses to a survey of SIG members’ interests in November 2024 and responding to feedback from the UKAT advisory board. Thus, our aims are, by collaborating:-

• Promoting the value of tutoring and advising to PGT students
• Understanding the role of advising and tutoring in the transition of PGT students
• Exploring the similarities and differences between PGT and undergraduate tutoring and advising
• Understanding PGT students’ expectations of advising and tutoring, and how these can be both managed and met
• Capturing the variety of current approaches to PGT advising and tutoring, reflecting the diversity of PGT delivery and student cohorts
• Supporting advisers and tutors of PGT students in their practice, including providing them with tools for talking to their own local education leaders and policy makers

Recent updates

• Members' driving focus: SIG members were surveyed in November 2024 to share their ideas for collaborative projects
• Nov 2025 Practice-sharing session: Mengyan Nie (UCL) discussed his work exploring and responding to his new students’ expectations of tutoring.
• January 2026 Practice-sharing session: Amanda Seys (Harper Adams University) discussed with the SIG her recent action research project on supporting students' transitions to postgraduate study. Amanda developed a support framework and pre-arrival webinars.
• Rabeya Khatoun (Bristol) surveyed SIG members to form a picture of how, when and by whom tutoring and advising is delivered to PGT students
• Presented at conferences: in addition to individual members’ presentations, Andrew, Claire and Mengyan presented a collective workshop on the imagined futures of postgraduate students at the recent 2026 UKAT conference.

Looking ahead

The SIG is currently running two main collaborative projects, which combine research and resource development, aiming to support SIG members and their colleagues.

• Expectations project: a sub-group of SIG members is working to explore and understand PGT students’ expectations of tutoring, how their experience of these compares, and the impact of their confirmation or disappointment on their overall student experience
• Resource-building project: SIG members are collaborating to develop a suite of resources to support advisers and tutors of PGT students through their transitions into, though, and beyond their study
• Literature resource: a key spin-off of the two projects is to provide annotated bibliography on the so far sparse literature on advising PGT students specifically

Want to get involved?

Join the Postgraduate students SIG and help us give a voice to them and to those who advise them.

Next SIG meeting: 18^th May, 2026, 1230-1330 - Online meeting. Tanya Cotier, Senior Lecturer in Special Educational Needs from the University of East London, will be speaking about her PhD project. Tanya is studying the student experience of learning within the field of education at level 7 from the perspective of students with disabilities.

Please contact either Andrew Mearman (a.j.mearman@leeds.ac.uk) or Claire Spencer (claire.spencer@bristol.ac.uk) if you are interested in joining our SIG.

To express interest in the resource building project, please contact Andrew, and for the expectations project, please contact Claire.

Find out more and sign up here: https://www.ukat.ac.uk/community/special-interest-groups/postgraduate-students