Observed differences between direct, indirect, and direct/indirect videotaped supervisory conferences.

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine whether supervisors and supervisees were able to observe differences in supervisory styles and whether or not the subjects' experience levels were related to the differences they observed. It investigated whether speech-language pathology supervisors, graduate student clinicians, and undergraduates rated differently their observations of direct, indirect, and direct/indirect supervisory behaviors in videotaped supervisory conferences. A modification of Smith's Individual Supervisory Conference Rating Scale served as the dependent measure. Under counterbalanced conditions, 30 supervisors, 30 graduates, and 30 undergraduates from six different universities each viewed one of the three videotapes and rated the level of occurrence of direct and indirect supervisory behaviors. Factor analysis results indicated that 14 of the 18 rating scale items could be used reliably to assess direct and indirect supervisory behaviors in the videotaped conferences. ANOVA results demonstrated that regardless of level of experience, subjects did observe differences between the direct, indirect, and direct/indirect conferences. Results of Tukey tests demonstrated that the direct conference observers' mean score accounted for the significant conference-style main effect 75% of the time.