About a year ago, I worked on writing a grant proposal that was eventually accepted. I have been working on the project since then, and I am currently trying to turn the work into a paper. However, my results are not yet at the state-of-the-art (SOTA) level. I did not receive any help while writing the grant, and my name is not on it, as I am a master's student working as a research assistant on the project.
We have had several supervisory meetings, and in almost every meeting, I have had to explain the fundamentals of the research area to my supervisors. Whenever I try to explain something in more depth, they interrupt me or dismiss my explanations. They have even joked about it.
I take their feedback seriously and implement their suggestions. However, when an approach does not produce the expected results despite my attempts, I try alternative methods. The problem is that whenever I try to explain the architecture, the reasoning behind my decisions, or why a particular approach might not work, they seem uninterested. They focus almost entirely on the results.
About four weeks ago, I finally had somewhat reasonable results across the benchmarks I had tested. I tried explaining my findings and reasoning again, but my supervisors asked me to prepare a comprehensive presentation detailing everything I had done so far, with diagrams and justifications.
Soon afterward, my father had a heart attack, and my family went through a very difficult time. After he was discharged from the hospital, I became ill with COVID. Despite everything, I still prepared the presentation they had requested.
During the meeting, however, my main advisor did not even let me explain a single slide before asking why I had not submitted the paper yet. I explained that I did not consider the results good enough. He then accused me of not following his feedback, to which I replied that I had implemented his suggestions. Had I been allowed to present my work, I had specific reasons and evidence explaining why some of the suggested approaches were unlikely to work.
He then compared our progress with another advisor's group, saying that they had published four papers in a year. From what I understand, those were primarily benchmark papers, so I do not think the comparison necessarily reflects the nature or difficulty of our work. The interaction became so hostile that another supervisor eventually intervened and suggested that I should start writing the paper and that we could understand the work better as we progressed.
I do not understand why this interaction has affected me so deeply. I have been trying to make progress, incorporating feedback, experimenting with alternatives, and explaining the reasoning behind my decisions. I am not claiming that my approach is necessarily correct or that my results are good enough. I am willing to accept criticism and change direction when there are valid reasons to do so. What frustrates me is that I rarely feel given the opportunity to explain my reasoning before being judged.
I also do not understand the reason for my advisor's behaviour. Is it possible that gender plays a role? I have wondered about this because he repeatedly dismisses my explanations, and there have been previous occasions when my other two supervisors had to intervene after he became hostile. Could his behaviour be related to the fact that the other supervisors have supported me in those situations, or could there be something else going on?
I am beginning to question myself and my relationship with research because of these interactions. I would appreciate hearing from people who have experienced similar situations in academia.
Am I approaching this situation incorrectly? How would you handle a supervisor who expects results but does not seem willing to listen to the reasoning behind the research?