JCPSLP Vol 17 No 1 2015_lores

as clinical coordinators to describe barriers to speech pathology student placements and identify ways to address them. They found that allowing clients to choose and consent to having a student clinician and by maintaining an “apprenticeship” style of supervision, the positives for the student, client, and private practitioner outweighed the negatives. They went on to conclude that student placements are possible in private practice. However, their report was based on evaluation of one student’s placement in one private practice, and did not explore a range of known barriers to placements in private practice. A first step in diversifying and increasing student placements in speech pathology private practice is to understand the barriers and benefits private practitioners perceive about supervising students in private practice. We conducted a quality improvement project with two groups of private practitioners, those who had previously supervised students on placement and those who had not, to explore their views and perceptions of (a) roles for, barriers to, and benefits associated with student placements in private practice and (b) satisfaction of clinicians, parents/clients, and students involved in student placements in private practice. Method This project used semi-structured interviews with two groups of speech pathologists working in private practice: those who had supervised student placements and those who had not. Recruitment Convenience sampling was used to recruit speech pathologists through private practice and university networks in New South Wales, Australia. All private practice clinicians known to take students from the authors’

university, six clinicians in total, were invited to participate in this study via email or phone contact. All six clinicians accepted (Group A). Invitations were then extended to six clinicians known to the lead author not to take students and five accepted (Group B). Consent was obtained from all participants to be interviewed. Table 1 provides summary data on interview participants in both groups. Group A participants had a mean of 8.3 years of experience (range = 5–11 years) and Group B had a mean of 18.2 years of experience (range = 12–25 years). All participants were in private practice as their primary position. Ten out of the 11 participants were female, which is similar to the national gender demographic of speech pathologists (HWA, 2014). Most participants were practice owners, either in sole trader positions or employers. The majority provided paediatric services only. Data collection The lead author completed an interview with each participant using a semi-structured interview guide. Examples of questions include: “Tell me about yourself and your practice (e.g., years of experience, caseload, employment status, service deliveries used within the practice, funding schemes accessed for clients)”; “Tell me what you see as benefits of having students in your practice”; “Would you consider taking students in the future? If yes? – what are the perceived benefits, and perceived barriers/challenges. If no? – why?” As this was a scoping study, exploring clinician views and perceptions, semi-structured interviews were chosen as they are the most widely used format in qualitative research, allowing the interviewer to explore more deeply into the issues being investigated (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006). The interviews were conducted either face-to-face or over the phone depending on participant availability. Group A

Table 2. Participant identified factors requiring participation of private practices in student placements

Group B: those who had not taken students on placements

Category

Subcategory

Found in Group A: those who had taken students on placements

Shrinking public sector – growing private sector

An increase in the number of new graduates entering in private practice

*

*

NDIS roll out

*

*

Growing waiting lists in community health and the importance of early intervention Limitations to service delivery models exist in public sector Private sector involves many differing service deliveries and clinical management approaches and capabilities To demonstrate to students a good, ethical and effective model of private practice New graduates need to learn about the business and administration side of private practice Ever growing legal issues and legislation around private practice that new graduates need to know about

*

*

*

*

A need for student exposure to differing models, service deliveries and experiences

*

*

*

*

*

*

A need to ensure graduates are work ready

*

*

* = found in data from this group

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JCPSLP Volume 17, Number 1 2015

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au