A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF RECIPROCAL PEER SUPERVISION DYADS AT THREE LEVELS OF TRAININ

Reciprocal Peer Supervision refers to a consultative relationship where trainees/clinicians assist each other with their clinical work, serving as supervisor and supervisee so that each partner provides and receives supervisory assistance. This mode of supervision developed from individual supervision through group supervision with a hierarchical supervisor, continued through the innovations of professionals, in peer groups to the efforts in training facilities. The developmental sequence culminated in the Reciprocal Peer Supervision dyad experience. This development has been documented by its advocates, but few systematic research studies have been undertaken to explore the content and satisfaction of peer supervisors.;This study was a content analysis of reciprocal peer supervision at three levels of training, the doctoral, master's, and undergraduate, from the perspective of the supervisor. It included two dimensions--the focus and the learning objectives of the supervisors' comments. In addition, an effort was made to study the students' perceived satisfaction with the reciprocal peer supervision experience as related to their perception of their own and their peers' counseling skills.;Ratings for the content analysis were from 3-minute audiotape segments. The segments were taken from three randomly determined locations from the peer supervision sessions which were recorded at three times during a semester. The perceived counseling competence of self and peer was measured using adapted forms of the Counselor Evaluation Rating Scale and the measure of perceived satisfaction was the Interview Rating Scale.;The results of the focus indicated that the students as a group focused on the Counselor, the Client, then the Counseling Relationship. The groups showed some variability with the graduate students focusing on the Client and the Counseling Relationship more than the undergraduates did. The master's students focused on the Counselor more than the doctoral students did. In addition, the graduates showed greater participation by the supervisee.;With the learning objectives, the total group used Perceptual skills more than the Conceptual and Executive skills. The master's students used Conceptual learning objectives more than the other students and the graduate students used Executive skills more than the undergraduates. Again, the graduate students encouraged more participation by the supervisee. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of school.) UMI.