Higher education curriculum seems to have different layers and components. These layers may begin from a university's written and official requirements (formal curriculum) and go on as far as to rites and norms of academic disciplines, in addition to implicit or unwritten ideas and beliefs (hidden curriculum). Official requirements and written rules can be regarded as a university formal curriculum, while hidden curriculum consists of unwritten and invisible rules. Post-graduate students at the end of their program, are required to conduct a research to receive their degree and this makes them face new dynamics, conditions and preoccupations. Choosing a research supervisor is one of these preoccupations. The Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology has regulated and issued formal guidelines according to which students can choose their supervisors. Although those guidelines are formulated to set a framework for student-supervisor relationship, what goes on in colleges and departments seems to be a far cry. It appears that there exist invisible values and norms that have a much more powerful role than official guidelines in selecting a research supervisor. Our qualitative research project aims at uncovering and explaining the hidden norms that influence students when deciding to choose their supervisors. Students studying in a Tehran teacher training university are the main informants of our research project

Acker, S., Hill, T., & Black, E. (1994). Thesis Supervision in the social sciences: Managed or Negotiated? Higher Education, 28, 483-498. Aguinis, H., Nesler, M. S., Quigley, B. M., Suk-Jae, L., & Tedeschi, J. T. (1996). Power Bases of Faculty Supervisors and Educational Outcomes for Graduate Students, Journal of Higher Education, 67. Armstrong, M., & Shanker, V. (1983). The supervision of undergraduate research: Student perceptions of the supervisor role. Studies in Higher Education, 8(2), 177 – 183. Armstrong, S. J., Allison, C. W., & Hayes, J. (2004). The effects of cognitive style on research supervision: A study of student–supervisor dyads in management education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3. Armstrong, S., Allison, C. W., & Hayes, J. (1997). The Implications of Cognitive Style for the Management of Student-Supervisor Relationships. Educational Psychology, 17(1-2), 209-217. . Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2(1), 45-70. Holdaway, E.A., Dubois, C., & Winchester, I. (1995). Supervision of Graduate Students. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 25(3), 1-29. Ives, G., & Rowley, G. (2005). Supervisor selection or allocation and continuity of supervision: Ph.D. students' progress and outcomes. Studies in Higher Education, 30(5), 535-556. Jamieson, S., & Gray, C. (2006). The Supervision of Undergraduate Research Students:Expectations of Student and Supervisor. Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 37-59. Kam, B. H. (1997). Style and quality in research supervision: the supervisor dependency factor. Higher Education, 34, 81-103. Lindgreen A., Palmer R., Vanhamme J & Beverland, M. (2002). Finding and Choosing a Supervisor. The Marketing Review, 3(2/1), 147-166.