Do Students Reflect Their Field Instructors?

The paper discusses the relationship between supervisory and learning styles among social work field instructors and students. The findings of research conducted in 1996 among 128 supervised students and 80 field instructors at an Israeli university suggest that the “personal” style is preferred by both instructors and students. The findings reveal significant correlations between supervisory and learning styles in the two groups. The results indicate that the more the field instructor considers him/herself as possessing one of the supervisory styles, the more the student perceives him/herself as having the same style. The paper discusses these findings and offers recommendations on how the field instructor should respond when the student adopts or imitates his/her supervisory style.