A National Survey of Peer Supervision Practices in School Psychology Training Programs

Abstract

Supervision is an essential skill for school psychologists, yet little is known about training graduate students to supervise others. One method to promote this skill is peer supervision, where trainees supervise each other while supervised by a licensed provider. This paper presents the results from a national survey of school psychology faculty examining the use of peer supervision within training. Findings suggest that about 66% of surveyed school psychology graduate programs provide opportunities for peer supervision, with about 75% of those programs providing training in supervision practices and 65% of those faculty providing evaluative feedback to peer supervisors. Overall, the vast majority of respondents agreed upon the benefits of peer supervision to students’ training in supervision skills as well as the barriers related to implementing peer supervision. Implications of the results for school psychology trainers as well as future research directions are discussed.