Concept Mapping of the Events Supervisees Find Helpful in Group Supervision

Abstract

Although group supervision is ubiquitous in practicum training sites today, little research has examined its benefits. The authors identified 66 different helpful events, drawn from the free responses of 49 graduate students in psychology. Thirteen of these students then sorted the events by similarity; a concept map was created via cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling of the resulting similarity data. Helpful events fell into five clusters: Supervisor impact; Specific instruction; Self-understanding; Support and safety; and Peer impact. These clusters differed on two dimensions: Perceiving supervisor versus peer impact and Acquiring objective versus self knowledge. Research and practice implications are discussed. © 2009 American Psychological Association.