Development and Validation of an Individual Supervisory Conference Rating Scale for Use in Speech-Language Pathology

An Individual Supervisory Conference Rating Scale (ISCRS) was developed and validated to provide a conference rating instrument for researchers, supervisors, and supervisees in speech-language pathology. Procedures to determine both reliability and validity of the scale were implemented throughout the development process. Direct and indirect supervisory behaviors were identified as factors indicative of effective individual supervisory conferences by experts, trained raters, supervisors, and supervisees. Though these two major factors perceived as indicators of effectiveness remained consistent across groups rating the conferences, perceptions of those factors varied depending on the group rating the conference interactions. Ratings of the factors were strongly related for experts and trained raters: however, ratings for supervisees showed little or no relationship to the ratings of any of the other three groups. The Individual Supervisory Conference Rating Scale is suggested for use in research, supervisor self analysis, and supervisor/supervisee joint ana]yses to measure perceptions of conference interactions and to determine perceived effectiveness.