Students at Risk in the Field Practicum and Implications for Field Teaching

Gatekeeping in the Practicum

“…Hanna's conclusion comes partly from his analysis of the declining importance of the field advisor/field liaison role in schools of social work and its shift from one requiring advanced practice and clinical consultation skills to one that is more administrative. Rosenblum and Raphael (1987) may have been noting the same shift when they observed a change in focus in field liaisoning: i.e., an increased emphasis on outcome measures and holding students accountable to behaviorally specific performance standards concurrently with a decreased emphasis on students' personal qualities such as maturity, emotional readiness, and their beliefs and values. In Hanna's (1992) view, a field advisor/field liaison ought to have the skills to "make some assessment of potential 'problems about learning' " (p. 160), form hypotheses about these problems, and teach from specific examples from the students' practice materials.…”

“…A final grouping of behaviors was labeled "problems in the use of field instruction" (p. 81) and included the inability to develop self-awareness, using field instruction for personal therapy, and having a tendency to personalize feedback. Rosenblum and Raphael (1987) identified similar behaviors, such as difficulty managing concrete tasks, problems relating to staff and peers, persistent high anxiety, difficulty recognizing and maintaining boundaries, passivity in the learner role, and poor use of field instruction (p. 61). Coleman, Collins, and Aikins (1995) noted that, while there are many descriptions in the literature of problematic or failing field performance, "operational definitions are nonexistent" (p. 260).…”

“…Linked to this may be field instructors' concern about student reactions to negative evaluative feedback. Rosenblum and Raphael (1987) 6 THE CLINICAL SUPERVISOR seemed to be referring to this when they noted field instructor's ". .…”

“…in which there is trust and sincerity" (p. 49), they note that "[H]istorically, supervisory relationships have paralleled non-directive therapeutic approaches, with limited emphasis on assessment and even less on corrective action" (p. 44). Their study reinforced the importance to students of having a field instructor who is capable of and willing to provide on-going critical feedback (see: Abbot & Lyter, 1998;Coleman, Collins & Aikens, 1995;Rosenblum & Raphael, 1987;Wilson, 1981). …”

Work Integrated Learning: A Study of Risk Management by University Lawyers

“…The student is excluded from the degree or university and/or receives a failing grade for the WIL program due to academic or disciplinary reasons Olkin and Gaughen (1991) The reluctance by WIL staff and/or the host supervisor to fulfil their responsibility to evaluate and/or fail the student Bial and Lynn (1995); Hughes, Heycox and Eisenberg (1994); Jervis and Tilki (2011); Rosenblum and Raphael (1987); Scott, Pachana, and Sofronoff (2011); Smith, McKoy, and Richardson (2001) Yes (host) No -…”