Sharing Sensitive Student Information With Field Instructors

Abstract

Student trust, ethical and legal responsibilities of faculty, and client risk are all at stake in decisions made about sharing sensitive student information with field instructors. This article describes a survey of practicum students, field liaisons, and field instructors at ten universities on what types of information they believed should be shared, what factors should be considered in sharing it, what school practices are followed, and what school policies should guide sharing this kind of information. Field instructors tended to want most types of information shared with them and students tended not to. A discussion explores how to assist schools in developing relevant policies in this area.