Subjects will be drawn from a largely self-selected pool of people who have registered interest in this project via an on-line registration form. The total sample size of supervisees is expected to be approximately 100.

Supervisees will be drawn from this pool if they can show that they meet the following minimum requirements to receive clinical supervision as part of this study:

• Qualification to practice in a relevant clinical field, e.g. as a therapist or other mental health practitioner
• Basic experience in using on-line communication media or willingness to use unfamiliar technologies
• Readiness to present clinical work for supervision
• Willingness to commit regular time to the clinical supervision group or dyad

Although a professional relationship between supervisor and supervisee, and any terms and conditions relating to the services and payments contracted between them, are essentially private matters to be negotiated between these two parties, the research team have agreed with the operators of the brokering service (GroupInterVisual) that, for reasons of both quality assurance in relation to the supervision services, and also to ensure a minimum degree of consistency of standards, there should be some assurance sought from supervisors of their qualification to provide clinical supervision services. Therefore, certain exclusion criteria will apply. Specifically, supervisors will be drawn from the pool described above only if, according to self-report and checks of validity, they meet the following four requirements:

• At least three years practice in a relevant clinical field, e.g. as a therapist or other mental health practitioner
• A diploma (or higher level qualification) from a recognized training institution or membership of a recognised professional body relevant to that practice area
• Experience and/or training in the provision of clinical supervision in relation to that practice area
• Experience and/or completion of a suitable training in on-line communication dynamics or in the provision of mental health services on-line

The sample will be composed of volunteers, rather than randomly selected from a wider group, making any generalisation of findings difficult. Nevertheless statistical testing will be able to indicate which findings might apply to wider samples of health professionals who may volunteer for participation in on-line supervision. The sample size of approximately 100 will deliver adequate statistical power. Analysis of variance for two groups (pre and post test) at 80% power and a significance level of p = 0.05 requires 64 subjects to detect a medium effect size (Cohen 1992). This general rule is dependent upon the variability of the measures used, however the sample size of approximately 100 in this study will contribute to compensating for any weakness arising from this source.

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online-supervision.net research team
20 July 2003