Several participants spoke about their initial lack of knowledge about what supervision was or how to use it. Nina, a Master’s student, recalled “I didn’t really have a really good understanding of what supervision was before I started my first placement”. She talked about sometimes finding supervision a bit intimidating and feeling unsure of whether or not she was saying the ‘right’ things and whether supervision was progressing how it was ‘supposed’ to. This uncertainty was echoed by Heeni, a BSW student, who felt frustrated not only with not knowing what her supervisor expected of her, but also frustrated with not knowing what she expected herself:
I didn’t really have a strong grasp of what supervision was and how best to use that relationship…I guess frustration was a big element of it for both parties. For me it was frustrating because I didn’t understand what it was that she wanted from me. And in the same instance I didn’t understand…it was frustrating for me because I didn’t know what I wanted as well.
Heeni viewed the struggle to understand supervision as a ‘hassle’ as she perceived this to be an obstacle which hindered her from ‘getting on’ with practice.
According to both Heeni and Rangimarie this lack of understanding about supervision was also experienced by other students. Rangimarie remarked:
I don’t think any of the students realise what supervision is and what they can get out of it, and that’s something that we don’t really discuss whilst
66
we’re doing the [course]. Yeah it’s not something that’s really talked about until you get to that [Post-Practicum Debrief].
Rangimarie believed that this uncertainty was shared by her colleagues in one placement as they demonstrated a lack of understanding of the benefits of supervision, something she was surprised by given her own initial experiences of positive supervision.
Nearly all of the participants spoke about having received some teaching about fieldwork supervision prior to going out on placement, but they all mentioned that only a very short time was allocated to this teaching. Some participants recalled having received a small amount of teaching on the process of contracting in supervision, but for La Tasha her memory of preparation was of being referred to literature on supervision. Two other participants were unable to recall any teaching on supervision, but assumed they must have received it given the importance they perceived supervision has to practice.
In commenting on what she believed to be minimal teaching on supervision, Heeni reflected that given her class had not commenced practicum at the time they received this information, that it was hard to comprehend, and the lack of experience meant the information was abstract and theoretical rather than grounded in practice understanding. It was not until Heeni experienced supervision in practice that she began to understand more clearly the concept of supervision and its application more clearly. Like Heeni, Lachlan attributed some of the difficulty he had in understanding supervision to the newness of the experience and having nothing to compare it to. For him this was exacerbated by what he felt as his isolation as a distance student with no local students to compare experiences with. Nina also talked about the newness of the supervision experience and her initial inability to anchor it to anything familiar to her:
I guess initially with the first placement it was just – ‘what is this supervision?’ and you know ‘what’s it for?’ and ‘what are we actually supposed to be doing here?’ And that took a while for me to kind of get the hang of it…never having experienced that kind of supervision before...initially it was a bit challenging, the…learning part.
As participants progressed through their practicums, their understanding and expectations of fieldwork supervision grew. For example, Heeni was clear that despite a
67
first less-than-ideal supervision experience, that she was able to build on that experience and be clear of what she needed for her subsequent fieldwork supervision:
It was much easier for me to go into those relationships and define what it is, and what I want from those relationships having gone through the third year placement and having that being such a mess. It was a lot easier for me...to define in my head (and for my supervisors)…what it is that I need and want…And it’s also been a good experience for me to understand personally how I relate to supervision and what I find beneficial in a supervisor.
While participants talked about building on their unsatisfactory fieldwork supervision experiences and over time forming an understanding of the purpose of supervision and how they could best use it, Nina emphasised the role of the training providers in better preparing students to use supervision. “I think [the training provider] could maybe spend a little more time preparing people for supervision. I don’t know whether it was just me, whether I was just asleep that day or something, but I didn’t feel like I was that prepared”. Nina’s comment captures the essence of many of the participants’ feelings about their readiness for supervision. The need for adequate preparation for fieldwork voiced by the participants corresponds to the findings of both Gelman (2004) and Kanno and Koeske (2010) which revealed that students’ anxiety decreased in proportion to the level of preparation for fieldwork they received.