Advice regarding dissertation supervisor
I am currently doing my Master's and I am doing a psychology dissertation for it.
For context, I did a dissertation before for my psychology undergrad, and never had any issues whatsoever with my supervisor then, we got on really well and I got an A for my dissertation.
With my master’s dissertation, I have had repeated issues with my supervisor since the start. In my first meeting with her, she asked me to give an example of a hypothesis, and when I did, she told me this is not a hypothesis, you don’t even know what a hypothesis is. I kept trying and giving her different examples, and she just kept telling me it wasn’t a hypothesis. It felt like she wasn’t even listening to what I was saying, it was like a reflexive response to any example I gave. She told me that all my classmates had come up with amazing hypotheses and that she will show me the standard I should be at, and she emailed me some to show me. She wouldn't answer any questions I asked her, even when I ask her things like when I need to have something done by, she dodged the question and just said I’m too behind and I need to get it done as soon as possible. I left the meeting with more questions than I went in with. And I am not shy of asking questions, I was asking them.
In my most recent meeting with her, we were going through my questionnaire to make sure it was okay before I apply for ethical approval. Early on, she recommended I change one of the questions, and when I asked her something about it she snapped ‘I won’t be arguing with you on every little thing while we go through this’ and didn’t answer me. Bear in mind I was literally just asking a question about it, I wasn’t even being argumentative.
My study is on choice overload and whether a mystery option helps reduce choice overload. So I had designed the study so that each participant was assigned to one condition, meaning each participant is asked to choose from either a large assortment or a small assortment, with or without a mystery option. After they choose, they answer questions about how difficult they found it etc. My supervisor told me that this is completely wrong and ‘isn’t a research design’ and that each participant must be shown all conditions. She wants me to show 8 conditions to every participant. Since I’ve been told not to ask questions, I’m just writing everything down and saying yes at this point even though I think her suggestion makes no sense. No choice overload study that I have read shows all conditions to each participant. I mean how can you attribute the difficulty of choice to the assortment and not the fact they're being shows 8 assortments to choose from?
Then she tells me its very messy to be asking the follow up questions about difficulty etc 8 times after showing each condition. She asks me to justify why I am doing this and why I think its appropriate. At this point I’m confused, because this was her suggestion, I did not create this idea, so I don’t know why I would be justifying it. In my design, the participant chose from one assortment, then answered the questions about it. I just said I’m not sure how I’d justify it. She then started getting angry saying I need to know how to justify my own study. I said that this was her suggestion for the design, so I’m not sure of the justification. She then got even angrier and started asking am I saying my original design is correct, because it isn’t, and I must change it. I then said I’m not saying her suggestion is wrong, I’m saying I don’t know the justification for it since it wasn’t my idea. She then told me that if I don’t stop, she’s going to write in the supervisor report that I was being defiant and not listening to her.
As we went through the survey, she kept telling me to change things, and I would say okay but let her know that I had taken the measures from the literature, and they were not designed by me. So then she would tell me to change a question and then smartly say ‘let me guess, you're going to say you took it from somewhere else’.
At the end of the call, she thought the call had ended and she started shaking her head in a disapproving way, not realising I could still see her.
I had a panic attack after the meeting ended; I was in hysterics. I genuinely can’t continue on working like this. I literally feel like I'm being gaslit, how can she tell me to do the design a certain way and then tell me to justify it because the design SHE recommended is messy. I understand that your supervisor is there to help and you should listen to them, but how is it fair that I am not allowed to ask questions or have discussions about changes we are making. I also don’t agree that her suggestion to change the study design is correct. Her threatening to write that I’m being defiant in the report has been the final nail in the coffin. There is no communication going on here.
I would like some advice please. How should I deal with this. I know people think you should just listen to everything your supervisor says and keep peace, but even that isn’t an option. I can't even ask questions without being threatened.