Consistency of supervisor and peer ratings of assessment interviews conducted by psychology trainees

ABSTRACT

Observation of counsellor skills through a one-way mirror, video or audio recording followed by supervisors and peers feedback is common in counsellor training. The nature and extent of agreement between supervisor–peer dyads are unclear. Using a standard scale, supervisors and peers rated 32 interviews by psychology trainees observed through a one-way mirror. Results indicated that peers and supervisors used similar dimensions to cluster the various competencies. Peers rated counsellor performance more positively for general counselling skills, but not for specialised techniques. Analyses revealed good supervisor–peer agreement for some items and poor agreement on others, with some differences being unacceptably large. The study has important implications for how feedback involving supervisors and peers might be managed and for peer supervision models.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervisor ratings
• peer ratings
• professional supervision
• competency assessments
• observational methods in supervision

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Craig J. Gonsalvez is a Professor of Clinical Psychology in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, University of Western Sydney. His research interests include theory and research in clinical supervision, especially the assessment of practitioner competence.

Frank P. Deane is a Professor in the School of Psychology and Director of the Illawarra Institute for Mental Health at the University of Wollongong. His research interests include improving supervision practices and, in particular, feedback and evaluation processes.

Peter Caputi is an Associate Professor and Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong. He has diverse interests in applied research in clinical, counselling, and health psychology.