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students perceive as
most beneficial about
their training program?
Sooin Lee
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Introduction
During clinical training, student therapists build clinical competence and
cultivate a professional identity, often involving a great deal of self-
reflection (Howard, Inman & Altman, 2006); and many trainees experience
both personal and professional growth through supervision (Hensley, 2002).
As clinical training is critical for student practitioners professional
development, many practicum sites are strongly committed to training
student practitioners (Hatcher, Wise, Grus, Mangione & Emmons, 2012).
However, few recent studies examined what makes an effective clinical
training program for student therapists.
In this presentation, doctoral practicum students written evaluations of the
training program at The Village of Hoffman Estates, Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) were analyzed to investigate what program
components were identified by students as the most beneficial to their
professional growth. It is expected that examining students perspectives to
their training experience will provide suggestions to improve training
programs.
Method
Students written evaluations of the training program and supervisors at The
Village of Hoffman Estates, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
for the past five years were gathered.
Forty-five program evaluations from 2008 to 2011 were analyzed. Responses
to the open-ended question Which aspect of your training here stands out as
most beneficial to your professional growth? were examined.
The most frequently identified aspects were further investigated. For example,
as multicultural competence and community psychology seminar (MCCP) was
identified as one of the most beneficial aspects, responses to the open-ended
question What was most helpful? under the MCCP section were examined.
One-hundred-forty-five supervisor evaluations by students from 2009 to 2011
were investigated using thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) as supervision
was most frequently identified as most beneficial about the training.
Finally, themes across the different aspects were extracted by using thematic
analysis.
Results: Whats most beneficial about
your training?
Forty-five program evaluations by students at The Village of
Hoffman Estates, Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) were gathered from 2008 to 2011. Thirty-nine
evaluations responded to the question Which aspect of your
training here stands out as most beneficial to your professional
growth?
Twenty two out of 39 responses mentioned supervision.
Seventeen responses implied learning environment by
indicating relevant aspects.
Nine responses identified multicultural competence and
community psychology seminar (MCCP) as most beneficial
about their training.
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