Developing professional competence in psychology: The impact of horizontal versus vertical university-based supervision.

摘要

While group supervision is a common practice of graduate programs training mental health professionals, the existing supervision literature focuses primarily on individual supervision. This dissertation focused on university-based supervision groups composed of practicum students at the same developmental level and groups comprised of practicum students at varying levels with regard to development of relationship, intervention, assessment, and diversity professional competence. Students from a professional psychology program served as participants and specific practicum programmatic elements were reviewed. Results revealed students in both groups performed similarly in the aforementioned competency areas based on evaluations completed by their supervisors. Student perceptions of the degree to which their engagement in university-based supervision contributed to their competency development was also comparable across groups. Additionally, other professional psychology programs were surveyed. The university-based supervision practices of the program of focus were compared to those of other programs revealing both similar and divergent practices. Recommendations were made to the training program of focus to improve upon their university-based supervision component and the evaluation measures utilized based on the findings of this project and the literature