Supervision Practices Research Articles

The impact of supervisor and research community support on PhD candidates’ research engagement

ABSTRACT Supervisor and research community support are among the key determinants of a positive experience for PhD candidates. Yet, empirical evidence of the individual variation in experienced social support among PhD candidates is still limited. In this study, we adopted a person-centered approach to detect distinct social support profiles and their relationship with the experiences of research engagement. We also examined how certain background variables explained belonging to a profile. The data were collected in spring 2021. Altogether, 768 PhD candidates from a Finnish university participated in the study. We detected three distinct social support profiles (High, Moderate and Low research community and supervisor support) that systematically differed from each other in terms of the levels of PhD candidates’ research engagement. Additionally, we discovered that writing a monograph, working alone (not in a group), being in latter phases of studying, and being a domestic PhD candidate, raised the odds of belonging to a profile with lower levels of support. The results from this study can be used in developing doctoral education and supervision practices.

Educational supervisors practice of Needs-Based Supervision in the Directorate of Education in Mafraqfrom the point of view of science teachers

Educational supervisors practice of Needs-Based Supervision in the Directorate of Education in Mafraqfrom the point of view of science teachers

Supervising trainee counselling psychologists of colour in doctoral research: A theoretical review and practice implications

Context & focusThe Division of Counselling Psychology (DCoP) states a commitment to diversity, inclusion and non-discriminatory practice throughout the counselling psychology profession, and towards ensuring topics of culture and diversity are ‘mainstream discourse’ within the division (DCoP, 2021). The current paper explores diversity and inclusion, within the context of counselling psychology training; specifically, with regards to the relational aspects of doctoral research supervision, with trainees of colour. Existing evidence regarding the experiences of trainee counselling psychologists of colour are explored and considered against existing models for the task of research supervision. Personal reflections from the author’s own academic practice have been considered to illustrate points raised and to invite the reader to further self-reflection.ConclusionAnne Lee’s (2008) model, outlining five ‘tasks’ for doctoral research supervision, has been expanded upon, to incorporate a reflective response to issues highlighted within the literature described above. Recommendations are made for future research supervision practice, for educators on counselling psychology training programmes.

PURPOSES AND PRACTICES OF YOUTH WORK SUPERVISION: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Youth development is a critical component of the ecosystem of human society. Young people not only inherit but also play a crucial role in determining a nation's future progress, growth, and development. Youth workers are responsible for delivering quality services to youth through their engagement with them in diverse program settings and employment situations. Therefore, youth workers must be equipped with multiple skill sets to effectively facilitate youth development using different approaches. Proper supervision of youth workers is, therefore, a vital part of youth work practice. The role of supervisors in guiding youth workers aims to help them effectively nurture youth and unleash their full potential. Given the lack of clarity in the literature on the core purpose and practices of youth work supervision, this paper examines basic definitions of supervision, its functions, selected models of practice, and its importance in the youth work profession. A clear understanding of what youth work supervision is, its features, and importance to youth work practice can provide greater clarity for the profession to ensure its role within the developing profession.

Instructional supervision: best management practices in secondary schools in Kinondoni municipality, Tanzania

Quality of learning depends much on classroom management, and instructional supervision always helps to alert the teacher in managing class. Instructional supervision practices engage teachers and their principals in a mutual relationship for the sole purpose of developing, maintaining and improving a school’s instructional programme, especially its curriculum and teaching personnel in attaining quality of education. This study intended to explore the best practices of instructional supervision management in selected secondary schools in Kinondoni Municipality. Specifically, it was aimed at examining the perception of teachers about instructional supervision practices and identifying exemplary/best practices of instructional supervision techniques practiced in secondary schools and lessons drawn from them for other institutions. The study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches and a descriptive survey design. It relied on a sample size of 159 participants, including parents, heads of schools, heads of departments, teachers and students from five selected secondary schools. The data were collected through interviews, questionnaires, document reviews, and observation and were analysed through descriptive statistics and content analysis. The findings of this study revealed that the majority of teachers had negative attitudes towards instructional supervision as a result of unfriendly supervisory practices by heads of schools and heads of departments. The supervisors failed to create a friendly environment with their supervisee to the extent that the teachers perceived instructional supervision as a mere implementation of the stipulated policies. The study further observed that the supervisors lacked adequate training apart from being too occupied by administrative roles and hence forgetting supervisory activities. The study established that teachers in secondary schools perceive instructional supervision as more fault finding rather than supporting them in improving their teaching practices. The focus of school-based supervisors ought to be on assisting teachers in enhancing their teaching and learning processes to better administer instructional supervision. Instructional supervision must place more emphasis on improving than on proving.

The Degree to Which Educational Supervisors Practice Creative Supervision in the State of Kuwait: A Teachers' Perspective

Objectives: The study aimed to identify the extent to which educational supervisors practice creative supervision from the teachers' perspective in the State of Kuwait. Methods: The study sample consisted of 400 male and female teachers in the State of Kuwait, selected using a stratified random method. A tool was developed with 37 items, and its validity and reliability were verified. Results: The study concluded that educational supervisors' practice of creative supervision was at a high level. The results also indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in the degree of educational supervisors' practice of creative supervision based on gender and academic qualification. Furthermore, there were no statistically significant differences based on years of experience, except in the field of training courses where differences favored those with 10 years of experience or more. Conclusions: The study suggests the need to enhance the creative supervision skills of educational supervisors in the State of Kuwait.

‘Challenging from the start’: novice doctoral co-supervisors’ experiences of supervision culture and practice

ABSTRACT There is a widespread interest in doctoral supervision, yet novice doctoral co-supervisors’ experiences remain understudied. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore how supervision culture and practice are experienced by novices. This thematic analysis is based on focus groups and in-depth interviews with 23 novice co-supervisors from two Swedish research-intensive universities. The study reveals three dimensions related to the challenging experience of the supervision culture, namely closedness, dependence and competition. Moreover, the analysis proves that co-supervisors’ practices are embedded within the ‘hidden curriculum’, here defined as the unplanned and implicit support outside formal meetings and activities. Novice co-supervisors bridge the gap between main supervisors and doctoral students and make the path to the doctoral degree smoother when engaging in emotional, intellectual, practical and mediation support. This study has practical implications and suggests improvements for co-supervision that would also benefit the doctoral students.

When Religious Folk Practice Meet Karl Marx: Courts’ Response to Ghost Marriage in Modern China

As religious folk practice is regarded as a radical departure from Marxist atheism, the abnormal existence of ghost marriages under the Chinese socialist regime has attracted wide scholarly attention in anthropology and sociology. However, few scholars have focused on how Chinese courts treat religious folk practices, such as ghost marriages, despite the official socialist ideology. Based on the typological analysis and case study involving 260 ghost marriage cases, the authors argue about the judicial activism of Chinese courts towards atheist ideology in religious folk practices. The findings of this study are twofold. First, the Chinese courts’ attitudes toward ghost marriage cases are pluralistic, reflecting the Chinese legal system’s selective obedience to the socialist ideology. Through the application of different legal interpretations of relevant laws, Chinese courts have shown three attitudes towards ghost marriages: encouragement, tolerance, and suppression. The first two attitudes can be regarded as supportive supervision of religious folk practice. Three factors tended to affect the courts’ attitudes towards ghost marriages: courts’ hierarchical level, parties’ claims, and whether ghost marriage rituals are performed. Second, further analysis suggests that RPC’s guerrilla-style governance strategy in the Chinese legal system allows it to deal with ghost marriage with more flexibility, even overriding its fundamentalist ideology. The guerrilla-style tactic is often used by the Chinese courts to handle matters of religious folk practices in a pluralistic manner. Overall, the courts’ pluralistic attitudes towards ghost marriage is that of modest tolerance and cooperation of religious folk practices based on the RPC’s model of governance.

'What is it we are trying to achieve here'? Community maternal and child health nurses and clinical supervision: A qualitative descriptive study.

To explore clinical supervision practice by Victorian Maternal and Child Health nurses, identify the self-reported supervision needs of nurses and the facilitators and barriers to meeting those needs. Community-based Maternal and Child Health nurses have responsibilities for the safety and wellbeing of children and specific clinical support needs. Clinical supervision has the potential to support nurses' clinical practice and reflective skills; however, little is known internationally about child and family health nurses' supervision practices. Qualitative descriptive study. Twenty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted between October and December 2021 with nurses, managers and supervisors across metropolitan, regional/rural areas of Victoria, Australia. Inductive thematic analysis was applied to the data. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research guided this study. Three main themes, with subthemes were generated; 'Understand what we do', 'It's the gathering of the nurses' and 'Bringing a case'. A lack of agreed purpose, aims and varied understandings of clinical supervision contributed to suboptimal clinical supervision. Although participants agreed about the importance of clinical supervision, the perceived benefits were inconsistently realized. This study points to a need for greater organizational awareness of the conditions and leadership needed to build reflective skills and culture in community-based child and family nursing. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research has guided this study. There was no patient or public contribution in the conduct of this study. A stronger focus is needed to build reflective culture and skill in child and family nursing. Areas for improving child and family nurses' use of clinical supervision have been identified. This study can inform nurse education, policy and service leaders, to strengthen clinical supervision in child and family nursing contexts.

Practice of Principal Academic Supervision in Improving the Quality of Teacher Learning at JHS 25 Padang

One important program that must be implemented in principle in teacher training to improve the quality of learning is the supervision of school principals in improving the quality of teacher learning. The purpose of this research is to learn about supervision actions or practices carried out by principals in schools to improve the quality of teacher learning. This research is expected to be able to assist school principals in improving the quality of learning through teacher supervision. Improving the quality of teacher learning will have a good influence on students, thereby increasing the quality of education. However, the problem is that the supervision of school principals is still underutilized, which will have a negative impact on improving the quality of learning. The method used in this study uses a qualitative approach with a descriptive approach. Research instruments include observations, questionnaires, interviews, and documentation. Principals and teachers became the focus of the investigation. Based on research findings, the practice of supervising school principals in improving the quality of learning at SMP 25 Negeri Padang is not optimal. This cannot be ignored because if this is not addressed immediately, it will have a negative impact on student learning. parties hope that this research will continue.

The Training Effect of Structured Reflective Practice Supervision on the Reflective Competence of Master's Clinical Psychology Students

The Training Effect of Structured Reflective Practice Supervision on the Reflective Competence of Master's Clinical Psychology Students

사회복지공무원의 슈퍼비전이 직무성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate and analyze the impact of supervision on the job performance of social welfare officials, who are social service providers in the public sector, and to make practical and policy suggestions for improving their job performance. The study utilized 190 questionnaires from 6th to 9th grade public servants in 25 boroughs of Seoul to analyze the data and conducted multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the three functions of supervision-administrative, educational, and supportive supervision-as well as the frequency and duration of supervision in practice were positively related to the job performance of social welfare workers in Seoul and affected job performance. The regression coefficient significance test revealed that among the three functions and practices of supervision set as independent variables, only the lower dimension, supportive supervision, is statistically significant and has a strong influence on the dependent variable, job performance. The implications of this study are, first, that all three functions of supervision are important, but that supportive supervision is a particularly necessary function of supervision for social welfare employees who are experiencing a lot of burnout due to the nature of their work, and that it is most important to enhance the function of supportive supervision in the organization to improve job performance. In addition, the study suggested the necessity and importance of supervision for social welfare workers as a profession that provides human services and suggested the need to expand the infrastructure for systematizing supervision.

Assessing Readiness for Change of Juvenile Probation Policies and Practices: A Factor Analysis of the Probation Officer Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behavior (POABB) Scale.

As juvenile probation undergoes nationwide reform to better align with research on adolescent development, it is critical to understand probation officers' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about corresponding changes to supervisory practices within juvenile probation departments. The Probation Officer Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors (POABB) Scale was designed for use with juvenile probation officers (JPOs) undergoing training in a specific evidence-based supervision strategy (i.e., Graduated Response) to assess staff's knowledge and beliefs about Graduated Response's practices and intended supervisory behaviors. To provide foundational empirical support for the novel scale, the current study examined the factor structure of this self-report measure using POABB data from 351 juvenile probation staff across three mid-Atlantic states. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that a five-factor structure within the POABB provided the best fit and, overall, the POABB had good internal reliability (ɑ = 0.84). Importantly, the five-factor structure suggests a key difference between knowledge of Graduated Response components and attitudes toward using those components in everyday practice. Results suggest that use of the POABB can provide probation departments with information about specific attitudes and overall willingness to implement specific supervision practices as well as offer targeted areas for additional training to support developmentally appropriate probation transformations.

The Increasing Prevalence of Children Home Alone in Ghana: The Importance of Considering Regional Inequalities

Research from industrialized settings has linked inadequate child supervision with various negative consequences. Nevertheless, empirical research in lower- and middle-income countries about correlates of inadequate child supervision has been scarce. The few studies that exist tended to focus on individual- and household-level factors, and reported associations that are not significant or in mixed directions depending on the context. Structural factors are left underexplored, but taking a more macro-level lens in settings with high regional disparities can hold the key to explaining increases in prevalence of inadequate child supervision. Exploring the evolution over time of child supervision practices can also enrich this explanation. We use data from two rounds of Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys to examine factors associated with children left home alone, and employ regional analysis using strata-level mixed effects. We found that in Ghana, the prevalence of children left home alone without adult supervision increased by 8.5% between 2011 and 2018 – an increase of more than 500,000 children over seven years. Statistical analyses suggest that variation between regions likely are associated with the growth of inadequate child supervision in this country. Future research should pay closer attention to how structural conditions, proxied by regions, can serve as either barriers or facilitators to adequate child supervision practices, helping shed light on residual variance unexplained by individual- and household-level factors.

Burnout among behavior analysts in times of crisis: The roles of work demands, professional social support, and psychological flexibility

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to apply the Job-Demands Resources model as a framework to examine the relationship between work demands and burnout among behavior analysts working in human service settings during the Covid-19 pandemic. We specifically investigated the work demands-burnout relationship and how psychological flexibility, supervisor support, and coworker support related to burnout, whether as moderators or as mediators of work demands. MethodA sample of 298 ABA practitioners participated in a cross-sectional investigation in April-May 2021 and reported sociodemographic and job-related characteristics, information about the impact of Covid-19 on work, work demands, psychological flexibility, supervisor support, and coworker support. We conducted regression-based analyses of moderation and multiple mediation. ResultsGreater work demands predicted higher levels of exhaustion and disengagement. Psychological flexibility and supervisor support partially mediated the influence of work demands on exhaustion and burnout; neither moderated the influence of work demands on exhaustion or burnout. Coworker support did not function as a moderator or mediator in the work demands-burnout relationship. ConclusionsFindings highlight the need for effective caseload management and supervision practices, along with initiatives that create opportunities for increased, positive interaction with supervisors and among colleagues. Providing psychological flexibility skills training may benefit behavior analysts as a burnout management strategy. As a personal resource, however, it may be insufficient to mitigate burnout in times of crisis when work demands are higher than usual. Organizations should consider multi-faceted burnout interventions that address personal and workplace factors to both increase personal/job resources and reduce job demands.

Thoughts on the Development of Independent Personal Agent System in China

Since the individual insurance agent system was introduced to China by AIA in 1992, China 's insurance agent team has also developed rapidly. Up to now, the number of insurance agents in China has reached more than 9 million, and it is also developing too fast, the insurance agent system in China has exposed many problems and affected the healthy development of the insurance market. On this basis, it draws on the experience of foreign insurance agent system, and puts forward reasonable suggestions for the development of independent individual insurance agents in China, which is conducive to overcoming the shortcomings of China 's current insurance agent system and becoming an important channel for the sale of insurance products. It is also conducive to standardizing market behavior.The specific suggestions mainly include: clarifying the legal status of independent individual insurance agents in legislation and formulating and perfecting laws and regulations; In terms of supervision, do a good job in agent access and practice supervision; In terms of income, the disclosure of the income of independent personal insurance agents is guaranteed, so as to promote the healthy and stable development of the independent individual insurance agent system.

On a pedagogy of authentic care in postgraduate research supervision

ABSTRACT This conceptual study examines the challenges involved in a new context of postgraduate education that emphasizes timely degree completion, skill development and employability, while still seeking to uphold a commitment to a genuine education (‘Bildung’). Findings from two recent empirical studies set the scene for this inquiry since they raise questions about the extent to which care underpins contemporary postgraduate research supervision practice, and thus render an exploration of the meaning and importance of care in the current context of postgraduate supervision especially timely. The author then reviews four models of understanding postgraduate research supervision for their compatibility and the extent to which they address ‘care’, before concentrating on five concepts highlighted in one of these models: Functional, Enculturation, Critical Thinking, Emancipation and Care. Drawing on insights from social philosophy, the philosophy of education and the literature on the professions, the author proceeds to theorize the relationships between these concepts, building an argument for prioritizing care as the core category, and demonstrating that in a context of postgraduate research supervision that emphasises the ‘functional’, to care authentically means to promote a genuine education through emancipation (‘Bildung’). Developing the notion of authentic caring further by drawing on the ancient idea that one’s own flourishing is a genuine ethical concern, it is also proposed that understanding and reconciling the tension between care for self and care for others is important to meaningful postgraduate research supervision. The study concludes with some practical and reflective questions for supervisors and those supporting their development.

Innovative Supervision Practices In Higher Education: Assessing Digitalization, Sustainability, And Quality Management

Middle managers act as a bridge between top-level administrators and frontline staff, ensuring effective communication and coordination between different levels of the organizational hierarchy. They translate higher management's vision and goals into actionable plans for implementation at the operational level. This research study aims to explore the innovative supervision practices of middle managers and their influence on the performances of higher education institutions. There were 321 faculties who participated in this study to rate their institution middle managers. Three HEIs from Zamboanga Peninsula were randomly selected as the study settings. Performance metric was based on the SUC levelling and number of accredited programs, which were collected from CHED database. The adoption of digital communication tools by middle managers has enhanced interactivity and communication flow within the organizations. Additionally, their focus on sustainability and resource allocation for continuous improvement has contributed to effective planning and a shared vision within the institutions. Middle managers in the three HEIs manifested competence in digitalization, sustainability, and quality management system as innovative supervision practices. This competence was correlated to their overall institution performance on SUC levelling and number of accredited programs. Nonetheless, the findings provide opportunities for HEIs to enhance their performance through the development of effective training programs and fostering a conducive administrative environment. This study contributes valuable insights to improve the overall performance of higher education institutions in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Using the sand tray method as a reflective learning tool in social work practice education

ABSTRACT The article explains a creative technique I developed to reflect on cases in a sand tray during practice supervision. Sand has been used in play therapy since the early 20th century to help children and adults create a visual representation of their world for the purpose of healing personal trauma. I often used the technique in my earlier career as a direct work and life story work tool with children. The sand tray becomes a three-dimensional picture, which the therapist and child explore together. I learned it from an experienced play therapist who took me on my own journey through the sand. The pictures I made were powerful and helped me to explore personal/professional realms. The sand tray becomes an artifact, an object rich with significance and imagery that acts as a metaphor for its maker, providing opportunities to crystalize complex stories in our case work for examination. The article provides instructions for Practice Educators who would like to explore the technique with their students in practice supervision.

A Systematic Review of Supervision Research Related to Board Certified Behavior Analysts.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00805-0.