Exploring the purpose of educational supervision through the lens of Proctor’s model: pharmacy professionals’ perceptions

Abstract

Abstract Background Educational supervision plays a vital role in postgraduate medical education and more recently in pharmacy and advanced clinical practitioner training in England. Proctor’s three-function model of clinical supervision (consisting of normative, formative, and restorative functions) is assumed to also apply to educational supervision, but this has not been tested empirically. The aim of this study was to establish pharmacy professionals’ perceptions of the purpose of educational supervision using Proctor’s model of clinical supervision as its lens. Methods Using a concurrent embedded mixed methods design, data were collected using a validated 25-item online survey and respondents were invited to add comments explaining their ratings. A census survey was sent to all learners enrolled on a postgraduate training pathway for pharmacy professionals working in primary care in England. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to determine the number of latent variables underlying the survey and framework analysis was used to identify themes from comments and aid interpretation of quantitative findings. Results 187 pharmacy professionals responded (response rate 20.7%). PCA extracted three factors explaining 71.5% of the total variance. Factor 1 corresponded with survey items linked to the formative function of Proctor’s model, while factor 2 corresponded with survey items linked to the restorative function. No items corresponded with the normative function. Framework analysis of comments identified two themes: support for learning, which corresponded with factor 1; and personal support, which corresponded with factor 2. Conclusions This study identified that pharmacy professionals perceived educational supervision to perform two functions, formative and restorative, but did not perceive it to perform a normative function. Educational supervision has the potential to support allied health professionals advancing their roles and we suggest the need for more research to clarify its purpose.