Exploring the impact of shared identities in internship supervision: A focus on early career school psychologists

Supervision plays a pivotal role in the field of school psychology, serving as a key component for skill development for future practitioners and licensure requirements. Over the past five decades, the demand for school psychologists has seen a significant increase, leading to an influx of new practitioners entering the profession (Morrison et al., 2022). As this profession requires on-the-job training, supervision is critical for helping to meet that demand. Thus, to successfully grow the field, there is a need for effective supervisors. It is important to recognize that perceptions of effectiveness can vary based on several factors. One such factor, similarity to one's supervisor, has been found to be necessary for the following reasons: “Most people desire cognitive consistency— consistency between attitudes and perceptions of whom and what we like and dislike, interacting with persons who share similarities usually leads to positive outcomes, and similarity validates our view of the world” (DeLamater et al., 2018, p. 268). For this study, demographic similarity (surface-level actual similarity) was the focus as it significantly impacts job satisfaction, feelings of self-efficacy, and rating of a supervisor's multicultural competence. The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between sharing multiple demographic identities (gender and race) with the primary supervisor as an intern, and the impact it has on self-reports of self-efficacy and job satisfaction when the intern transitions into being an early career school psychologist. It also explored the relationship between sharing multiple demographic identities (gender and race) with the primary supervisor and how they rate the supervisor's multicultural competence. The results of the study showed that sharing multiple demographic identities (gender and race) impacts self-efficacy scores but not job satisfaction or rating of supervisors’ multicultural competence. The results also showed that sharing gender predicts self-efficacy scores more than sharing race.