Supervision

Abstract

Although supervision is a central component of internship education for social work and other helping profession students, few reports about the supervision process exist in the literature. In the present study, weekly process data were gathered on first and second year students' (N = 77) perceptions of critical incidents in the supervision process, the most important interventions made by supervisors, feelings about the supervisor, satisfaction with supervision, and the effectiveness and impact of supervisor interventions. When the semester was completed, outcome data were gathered retrospectively from the same students on the same variables. Among the major findings were that students wanted direction and on-going support from their supervisors, but that they also wanted to think independently and to be self-reliant. Process measures provided limited support to the developmental model of supervision.

Key Words:

• Clinical supervision
• process variables
• field instruction
• outcome variables
• developmental model