The supervision preferences of an urban public middle school professional staff: A quantitative and qualitative analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine the supervision perceptions and preferences of the professional staff of a single urban public middle school. The study sought to: (1) describe whether professional staff viewed supervision as formative, summative, or in some other way; (2) identify professional staff members\u27 perceptions of supervision; (3) determine whether professional staff members\u27 perceptions of supervision relate to a family or specific model of clinical supervision as noted in Pajak\u27s Approaches to Clinical Supervision: Alternatives for Improving Instruction; (4) identify professional staff members\u27 experiences regarding supervision; (5) determine whether professional staff members\u27 experiences of supervision relate to a family or specific model of clinical supervision as noted in Pajak\u27s Approaches to Clinical Supervision: Alternatives for Improving Instruction; (6) determine how professional staff prefer to be supervised; (7) determine if teaching is improved as a result of supervision. The study began with an Initial Staff Questionnaire followed by twelve in-depth individual case studies. Subsequently, a Follow-Up Survey using a Likert scale was distributed to quantify professional staff responses to fifty statements of the case study participants. Twelve themes emerged with an analysis of responses. They were: the person(s) one would go to with a problem or question about one\u27s teaching, what the participant\u27s understand supervision to be, what should be done in order to make supervision beneficial, the importance of assistance in supervision, affirmation, communication, goals, the administrator as teacher, the supervisory process at this middle school, the import of observation for evaluation, supervision of successful teachers, and the relationship between supervision and evaluation. Conclusions were: (1) The professional staff view supervision as formative. (2) Evaluation is understood to be part of the supervisory process. (3) Staff members seem content with their current supervision model, a variation of Goldhammer\u27s Clinical Model. (4) Staff members believe they are supervised on a continuing basis and that they are not unsupervised. (5) Staff members prefer supervisory experiences which include support, affirmation, and communication. (6) Incentive for improvement in teaching comes from positive supervisory comments and the capacity of the supervisor to model a variety of teaching methods