Students’ Satisfaction with Supervision during Practicum: A Case of USIU-A Students

In high income countries, it is a common practice for trainees in psychology to have clinical supervision. Clinical supervision is the most critical support that a trainee can have while applying the skills learned. Satisfaction with clinical supervision seems to play a role on how students grow in this profession. Unfortunately, not all students in psychology doing their practicum in Africa are satisfied with clinical supervision or have a supervisor at the practicum site. An analysis was performed to determine the percentage of the United States International University – Africa masters in clinical and counselling psychology students, who were satisfied or not with clinical supervision provided at the practicum site. The analysis also investigated if they had clinical supervision at the practicum site. It was used to determine if they found supervision useful in terms of helping them to be more effective in their role as counsellors, and to make recommendations on how students’ clinical supervision could be improved. The findings of this research show that 55 % of the students were mostly satisfied with the clinical supervision, 2 students did not have supervision at the practicum site, 37.5% of the students said that supervision definitely helped them to be more effective in their role as counsellors, and 17.5 % of the students recommended that they have more supervision. Most of the students were satisfied with the supervision provided at the practicum site. The students found that the supervision received helped them to be more effective in their role as counsellors. Furthermore, not all students had supervision at the practicum site. However, those who received supervision recommended that they have more supervision.