"Unsatisfactory" prac evals?

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JakeBerenson

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How common is it to receive an "unsatisfactory" practicum evaluation as a grad student? How much does it hurt you come internship application time?

I'm a third year in a university-based clinical psychology PhD program. It's a balanced program, but my primary focus is on research, and I plan to go into academia. I just received an "unsatisfactory" evaluation from one of my clinical practicum supervisors. I think a large part of the problem was just a poor fit between me and the practicum and my supervisor (it was a very therapy-heavy prac, which is not my main interest, and we just had very different approaches to therapy overall--there were no ethical concerns, etc). I do plan to take some of the suggested areas of improvement to heart and work on them, but right now, I'm honestly just worried that getting such a negative evaluation could have serious repercussions for me with regards to my program and applying for internship.

My previous prac evals have been pretty balanced, noting both areas of strength and areas of suggested improvement. Also, I received a much more balanced eval from a different supervisor at the same site last year.

I'm taking an extra year before internship to work on research, and so I'm not applying to internship until the year after next.

Any advice, especially personal experiences from people who have received poor practicum evaluations and "bounced back," would be greatly appreciated. :)

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Practicum evals are the most common complaint amongst grad students in supervision, so you're in good company. I've had one or two that werent outstanding, and I matched just fine for internship. Like you, I took seriously what I could in regard to improvements, but didnt allow them to change the trajectory of developing my own clinical/professional identity. You clearly wont ask this person to write you a recommendation, so it shouldnt hurt you. You might want to talk to your DCT if you havent already in regard to the fit issues.

It sounds as though you got a poorer review than you expected? If this is the case, you might also want to make that clear to the supervisor and to your DCT. Supervisors should make clear if there are any areas of weakness and give you the chance to improve. If there is anything in your review that was a surprise to you - thats your supervisors fault, not yours. At times, supervisors can use those evals to blow off steam, which is inappropriate.

Theres really no way that a person can be a good fit with every site or every supervisor. Taken as a whole, practicum experiences should give you a picture of where and with whom you will work best, and also expose you to places and people you might want to avoid.
 
I always thought you had to be pretty bad to get an unsatisfactory. What was the issue?
 
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In my PsyD program, if you get an unsatisfactory practicum evaluation you are put on a remediation plan to specifically address the deficit areas. This may be very time consuming and delay your progress through the program or even dismissal from the program. Normally you have to do the practicum over which is another year but the grade you get in the second go around replaces the grade from the unsatisfactory practicum grade. It is reflected on your transcript that you had to take the practicum over but the grade for your GPA is replaced by the passed practicum. If you don't pass practicum rotation the second go around than you are placed on academic probation which could involve dismissal from the program or another remediation.

Practicum sites and supervisors related to Match and consistency of supervision may also need to be addressed as sometimes it is the supervisor's unrealistic expectations rather than the skill level of the student that could be the issue. At my program, some practicum sites supervisors have not been overly supportive or provided good supervision and these sites and supervisors based on student evaluations of their experiences may not be included in future academic years. Some students receive unsatisfactory ratings from practicum supervisors, but then the clinical training director has the final judgment on passing or failing practicum so they may consider all of the evidence related to supervisor dynamic and student dynamics and allow some students to pass despite a unsatisfactory grade by practicum site supervisors.

One caveat that must be considered in this process is that Psychologists training involves years of supervision during training, predoc, postdoc and afterwards. Some students believe they know it all and they may disrespect their supervisor by constantly second guessing or "Yes-But" them. You have to learn to listen and not take everything person to make it as a psychology student or psychologists. If you are having struggles early on and it does not get resolved, then you are not going to make it as a psychologists.

I was curious of why you are doing practicums if you want to be in Academia as a research/teacher? Also, I think to work in academic settings you might have a higher standard since you may be involved in many supervisor/mentorship relationships. I don't know how you could ever be a clinical psychology faculty member without first working in the field or doing both to reach the necessary level of competence.
 
I'm pretty sure that you have to do clinical practicums in any clinical doctoral program, even if you want to be in academia. Even the clinical science model programs require it, AFAIK.
 
In my PsyD program, if you get an unsatisfactory practicum evaluation you are put on a remediation plan to specifically address the deficit areas. This may be very time consuming and delay your progress through the program or even dismissal from the program. Normally you have to do the practicum over which is another year but the grade you get in the second go around replaces the grade from the unsatisfactory practicum grade. It is reflected on your transcript that you had to take the practicum over but the grade for your GPA is replaced by the passed practicum. If you don't pass practicum rotation the second go around than you are placed on academic probation which could involve dismissal from the program or another remediation.

Practicum sites and supervisors related to Match and consistency of supervision may also need to be addressed as sometimes it is the supervisor's unrealistic expectations rather than the skill level of the student that could be the issue. At my program, some practicum sites supervisors have not been overly supportive or provided good supervision and these sites and supervisors based on student evaluations of their experiences may not be included in future academic years. Some students receive unsatisfactory ratings from practicum supervisors, but then the clinical training director has the final judgment on passing or failing practicum so they may consider all of the evidence related to supervisor dynamic and student dynamics and allow some students to pass despite a unsatisfactory grade by practicum site supervisors.

One caveat that must be considered in this process is that Psychologists training involves years of supervision during training, predoc, postdoc and afterwards. Some students believe they know it all and they may disrespect their supervisor by constantly second guessing or "Yes-But" them. You have to learn to listen and not take everything person to make it as a psychology student or psychologists. If you are having struggles early on and it does not get resolved, then you are not going to make it as a psychologists.

I was curious of why you are doing practicums if you want to be in Academia as a research/teacher? Also, I think to work in academic settings you might have a higher standard since you may be involved in many supervisor/mentorship relationships. I don't know how you could ever be a clinical psychology faculty member without first working in the field or doing both to reach the necessary level of competence.

Addressing these two points/paragraphs:

1) I definitely agree. Learning how to "take" supervision is a crucial skill in grad school, particularly with us clincal psych students, who sometimes can err on the side of feeling as though we know it all (not assuming this is the case with the OP, mind you). We're not used to hearing that we aren't great at something; in fact, for many psych students, this could reflect the first time they're hearing that they might actually be bad at what it is they're doing. In the end, though, as has been said, it's the supervisor's job to let you know what your deficiencies are as they arise so that you can work toward correcting them. If they're dropping bombs on you at the end of the semester/year, then they're probably doing something wrong themselves, even if their criticisms are justified.

2) I believe many would make the argument that if you're going to get a degree in clinical psychology, even if you never plan to practice, you should have training in the clinical aspects of your discipline. I firmly believe that no clinical psych student should be able to graduate a program without having any direct patient contact. Just doesn't make sense to me. Whether you need to work in the field afterward is debatable, but completing practicums is a necessary part of any clinical psych grad school training program.

As for the mentorship model, having that type of supervision is generally the norm in most (although of course not all) "traditional" Ph.D. programs, at least from what I can tell based on my limited vantage point.
 
How common is it to receive an "unsatisfactory" practicum evaluation as a grad student? How much does it hurt you come internship application time?

I'm a third year in a university-based clinical psychology PhD program. It's a balanced program, but my primary focus is on research, and I plan to go into academia. I just received an "unsatisfactory" evaluation from one of my clinical practicum supervisors. I think a large part of the problem was just a poor fit between me and the practicum and my supervisor (it was a very therapy-heavy prac, which is not my main interest, and we just had very different approaches to therapy overall--there were no ethical concerns, etc). I do plan to take some of the suggested areas of improvement to heart and work on them, but right now, I'm honestly just worried that getting such a negative evaluation could have serious repercussions for me with regards to my program and applying for internship.


My previous prac evals have been pretty balanced, noting both areas of strength and areas of suggested improvement. Also, I received a much more balanced eval from a different supervisor at the same site last year.

I'm taking an extra year before internship to work on research, and so I'm not applying to internship until the year after next.

Any advice, especially personal experiences from people who have received poor practicum evaluations and "bounced back," would be greatly appreciated. :)

I would not worry too much. If asked about this during an internship interview, you could use this to illustrate a learning experience. Wondering why a supervisor would not discuss this with you prior to putting it in on an evaluation (would not be my preferred choice of providing feedback).
 
I'm pretty sure that you have to do clinical practicums in any clinical doctoral program, even if you want to be in academia. Even the clinical science model programs require it, AFAIK.

This.

OP: I'm sorry you're having to go through all of this. :( From the sound of it, this is your first negative eval (I think "balanced" evals are much, much more common than great evals--as it should be in a training program) and also a prac site "fit" issue, so hopefully, your program will recognize this as an exception rather the rule and won't do anything drastic. Also, you sound willing to work on the suggested areas of improvement, which should be a definite plus Good luck! :luck:
 
Thanks for your comments. To address a few questions:

First, our practicum evals require supervisors to rate us on a number of domains. While I did receive "unsatisfactory" ratings in a few domains (relating to non-specific skills and areas like rapport), as far as I know, I didn't receive an "unsatisfactory" rating for the practicum as a whole.

I knew I had weaknesses in some areas and have been working to address them. Most of them have been mentioned before by other supervisors (although I've never received any "unsatisfactory" ratings before), and I honestly feel like I've been improving in those areas. However, the practicum was a supplemental prac to provide me with more therapy experience, and so I was only there one day a week and had a small caseload. Thus, I feel like my supervisor was working off a minimal amount of interaction when evaluating me. For example, she had concerns about my therapeutic alliance skills based on one client who dropped out of therapy, even though I've had success with long-term clients at other sites. Also, my eval at my main prac (which was almost all assessment) was pretty balanced. I was careful not be defensive about the negative eval.
 
Thanks for your comments. To address a few questions:

First, our practicum evals require supervisors to rate us on a number of domains. While I did receive "unsatisfactory" ratings in a few domains (relating to non-specific skills and areas like rapport), as far as I know, I didn't receive an "unsatisfactory" rating for the practicum as a whole.

I knew I had weaknesses in some areas and have been working to address them. Most of them have been mentioned before by other supervisors (although I've never received any "unsatisfactory" ratings before), and I honestly feel like I've been improving in those areas. However, the practicum was a supplemental prac to provide me with more therapy experience, and so I was only there one day a week and had a small caseload. Thus, I feel like my supervisor was working off a minimal amount of interaction when evaluating me. For example, she had concerns about my therapeutic alliance skills based on one client who dropped out of therapy, even though I've had success with long-term clients at other sites. Also, my eval at my main prac (which was almost all assessment) was pretty balanced. I was careful not be defensive about the negative eval.

Thanks for the clarification----Yes it is common to receive lower ratings in areas of need but receive an overall satisfactory rating. I would not be overly worried since you had limited interactions with the supervisor and it was a supplemental practicum. If you don't receive any unsatisfactory ratings for any of the domains then you probably are not receiving adequate supervision. We all have "blind spots" and this is part of supervisor responsibility to ensure that we become aware of our "blind spots" and areas of needs for improvement.
 
Out of curiosity, to what extent would your internship applications know what your supervisor evaluations were like? Is that something we have to send to them?

In my program you also can get sent for remediaton if you get an overall score of 1 in one of the broad categories your being evaluated on. I don't think it's the sort of thing that could get you removed from the program though, although I'm not completely sure what this remediation consists of.
 
Out of curiosity, to what extent would your internship applications know what your supervisor evaluations were like? Is that something we have to send to them?

You don't need to send practicum evaluations or anything when applying for internship. So, really, sites shouldn't know at all, unless you got a letter of reference from that supervisor (which I can't imagine why you would do!) or it was mentioned by your DCT (which also sounds pretty mean-spirited). You would just choose three references who you knew had more positive opinions of you.

However, where this can be problematic is when not having that supervisor as a referee seems very obvious for specific reasons. For instance, if sites can tell by your CV that you did a recent practicum in an area you express high interest in or that fits really well with their training, and you don't have a reference from that supervisor, they may be a little suspicious.
 
Academic DCTs may summarize practicum performance outcomes, but internship directors would rarely get specifics quoted from one supervisor (other than praise) or a discreet summary of an "area for growth". It is actually valuable to have practicum supervisors who do give less than all-positive feedback because it leads to self-reflection and learning. Growing as a clinician requires feedback and I think we are not particularly good as a field at giving critical feedback. If you get only glowing practicum refs, internship may be a rude shock. I've had interns be distressed that they weren't getting "outstanding" on a first eval and claim they have "always had 5's". But they really did need to hear that some specific competencies were not up to professional standards.
 
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