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thesis entitled

A MODEL MERCY CLERKSHIP PROGRAM
FOR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

presented by

SISTER MARY CYNTHIA LEARY

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M.A. degree in Secondary Ed. 8 Curriculum

 

 

 

Major professor

Date 5-19-78

 

0-7 639

 

 

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A MODEL
MERCY CLERKSHIP PROGRAM
FOR
PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

By
Sister Mary Cynthia Leary, R.S.M.

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum

ABSTRACT

A MODEL
MERCY CLERKSHIP PROGRAM
FOR
PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

BY
Sister Mary Cynthia Leary, R.S.M.

The author's purpose in the study was to explore
clerkship programs and to present a new clerkship model
based on the educational theories of Piaget, Dewey, and
Rogers.

Since the Middle Ages, clerkship has been a part
of educational theory and practice particularly as this
relates to professional training programs. Operating on
the principle that persons learn through the experience of
participation, clerks were placed within professional
settings where field experiences were possible under the
supervision of professional masters in the field.

Results of the study of three professional centers
having clerkship programs in law, medicine, and education
respectively, and assessment of the needs of the Mercy
Clerkship Program which has been in existence since 1976,
formed in part the basis for the model program proposed.
The new model is designed to provide an integrated program

for personal and professional development.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writer wishes to express sincere appreciation
for the constant guidance and assistance of Ted Ward, Ph.D.,
Committee Chairman and my academic advisor during all of
my studies in this Masters degree program. Special grati-
tude is extended to Samuel Moore, II, Ph.D. for his willing
assistance in relation to the development of this thesis
and as the second member of the thesis committee. The
strength of the support and encouragement constantly given
to me by MOther Mary Honora Kroger, R.S.M., Ph.D. my
Professional Master, is especially acknowledged here.

The writer wishes to express her deepest appreciation
and gratitude to her Religious Superior, Mother Mary Quentin
Sheridan, R.S.M. and to Mother Mary McGreevy, R.S.M.,
Associate Superior, without whose absolute trust, support and
challenge, the writer would never have sought to accomplish
this thesis.

The writer also wishes to express deep gratitude to
each member of her Religious Community, the Religious Sisters
of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, particularly to Mother Rita Rae
Schneider, R.S.M., for all of the efforts and work that have

been done to support me in accomplishing this study.

ii

CHAPTER

II.

III.

IV.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE PROBLEM, PURPOSE, DEFINITIONS OF
TERMS USED, AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.

Statement of the Problem .
Statement of Purpose .
Definition of Terms .
Organization of the Study

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .

The Historical Development . .
The Learning Theories of Dewey, Piaget,
and Rogers as these Relate to Clerkship .

DESIGN OF THE STUDY .

Description of Population, Instruments,
Procedures . . .
Presentation of the Data

1. The Three Professional Centers of Law,
Medicine, Education . .
2. The Mercy Clerkship Program
RESULTS OF THE STUDY .

The Three Professional Centers of Law,
Medicine and Education

The Clerkship Program in the Home of Mercy :

SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS, CONCLUSIONS
The Model Clerkship Program

FOOTNOTES .

APPENDICES .

. Cover Letter for Pilot Study .

. Interview Questions for the three
Professional Centers . .
Interview Questions for the Needs
Assessment . . . . . . . .

A
B. Pilot Study Questionnaire .
C
D

BIBLIOGRAPHY .

iii

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93

93
95

. lOO
. 103

107

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM, PURPOSE, DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED,

AND ORGANIZATION OF THE

Clerkship has long been a part
and practice, especially as it relates
professional preparation. As early as

clerkship was integral to professional

underlay the guild system of that time.

of history, clerkship formed the basis

apprenticeship and work-study programs.

continues to influence the educational

STUDY

of educational theory
to programs for
the Middle Ages,
development and
At a later period
for the trade union
Today, the concept

system particularly

in such areas as medicine, law, and teaching where a certain

period of clerkship or internship is required prior to

certification.

The main purpose of clerkship programs as they have

developed through the ages has been primarily that of pro-

viding persons with the opportunity to
skills of a trade and giving practical
ence within real work situations under

vision of professional masters. Under

learn technical
training and experi-
the expert super-

these masters, per-

sons were taught also to see their professions in relation-

ship to other tradesmen and in relationship to society as a

whole.

2

Educators generally have endorsed the concept of
clerkship programs as valuable to learning. However, the
training given under the traditional clerkship program is
no longer enough to meet the intensities of today's pro-
fessional world in a highly complex society. Considering
a clerkship program today, one must now take into account
the significant change which has been occurring in educa-
tional theory and practice.

Because of modern psychology's stress upon the
importance of the individual person and his need to become
an integrated, goal-oriented, self-actualized person aware
and appreciative of the process and meaning of his own
life experience, the purpose of education has shifted, al-
most overnight, away from the teaching of skills as a pri-
mary end to that of concern for developing the maximum
potential of persons. The new emphasis in education places
skill development in a broader concept where development
of persons is the first value and skill development serves
this greater end. Education,then, is seen as a process
which constantly introduces and keeps alive the natural
connections and relationships between learning and life.1
In the words of Carl Rogers the aim of education is described
as,

the facilitation of learning, . . . the way in
which we might develop the learning man, the
way in which we can learn to live as individuals
in process. I see the facilitation of learning

as the function which may hold constructive,
tentative, changing proCeSs answers to some of

 

3

the deepest perplexities which beset men
today.

The more urgent need now is for persons with more compre-
hensive education able to perceive problems, formulate
hypotheses for meeting these problems, and then apply
research-based solutions to these problem-situations.. The
hypothesis is that the traditional clerkship model can be
used as a basis for formulating a program capable of pro-

viding such a comprehensive education.

Statement of the Problem

 

If one accepts as true the proposition that the
training given under the traditional type clerkship program
is no longer able to meet the intensities of today's pro-
fessional world, and if one also believes that the aim of
education is the maximum development of the total human
person, as such prominent educators as Dewey, Piaget, and
Rogers do, then there is need to design a clerkship program
capable of providing the kind of comprehensive education
spoken of earlier in this paper. Formulating a program
based on the traditional model, the new clerkship model
aims to provide three things: 1) the transmission of know-
ledge and skills equal to the demands of highly specialized
professional programs; 2) a systematic process whereby
persons are able to interrelate their work experiences with
the other experiences of their everyday lives thus enabling

them to draw connections between the growth-patterns taking

4
place in their professional development and the growth-
patterns taking place in the other areas of their physical,
psychological, emotional, and spiritual development; 3) a
system for on-going evaluation with professional persons
who are capable of assessing personal and professional
development in the context of the needs and demands of
today's society and who will provide the necessary challenge

to establish one's identity within society.

Statement of Purpose

 

The author's purpose in the study is to trace the
history and development of clerkship, to explore several
current clerkship programs, and to present a model for a
clerkship program.providing a comprehensive education capable
of preparing persons to meet the intensities and demands of
today's professional world and of establishing their
identity within society in order to serve society.

In tracing the evolution of clerkship programs,
particular attention has been given to obtaining information
about program elements in order to translate these into a
sound basis for the development of the model clerkship
program proposed. Programs in law, medicine and education
were studied in particular as these constitute professional
areas where clerkship historically has been an integral
part of professional preparation and has developed con-

tinuously over the years.

5
Extensive consideration is given to the learning
theories of Dewey, Piaget, and Rogers since the researcher
draws primarily from these three sources in articulating
the educational framework for the model clerkship program

proposed.

Definition of Terms

 

A listing of the important terms and their descrip-
tion in relation to this study is as follows:

Clerkship explored in this study refers to that

 

type of professional preparation which has as part of its
program a required period of time to be spent in practical
training under the supervision of adept professionals prior
to certification within that given profession. In the case
of the proposed model program, the concept clerkship in-
cludes what was stated above but is more comprehensive in
scope and includes both professional and personal develop-
ment.

Clerkship Programs are internship-type programs

 

which provide persons with the opportunity of learning tech-
nical skills of a profession and give practical training
through experience in that profession under the expert
supervision of professionals. With respect to the pro—
posed model, programs are individualized and tailored to
meet the needs and aspirations of each person and the

demands of the professional world. Goals and objectives

6
for personal and professional development are specified
with each person entering the program and consistently
reassessed with the professional masters throughout the
program.
‘glggk denotes any person actively participating in
a clerkship program.

Comprehensive Education concerns itself with all

 

the aspects of personal and professional development. It
is a process which leads persons to establish their
identity within society in order to serve society.

Systematic Process is an organic, progressive move-

 

ment from one stage of personal growth and development to

another.

Organization of the Study

 

Chapter II of this study is devoted to a review of
the literature as it pertains to the problem.

Chapter III contains the design of the study, in-
cluding a description of the instruments used for the
interviews and the questionnaire study.

Chapter IV consists of the results of the study.

Chapter V includes a proposed model for a clerkship
program.and the conclusions, recommendations and summary

of the study.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The purpose of Chapter Two is to examine the
literature relating to the present study. To do this the
chapter is divided into two sections: 1) review of the
literature related to the historical development of clerk-
ship; 2) review of the literature pertaining to the learn-
ing process as set forth by three educational theorists
Dewey, Piaget and Rogers and as this relates to the problem

of clerkship presented in this paper.

The Historical Development

 

Having introduced the concept of clerkship as a
highly specialized program of professional preparation, the
researcher now offers historical perspective to this con-
cept.

Since the beginning of the Catholic Church, down
through the Middle Ages, and even to the present time, clerk
or cleric has had the connotation of clergyman. The work
itself comes from the Greek Kleros meaning clergy. Appli-
cation of the term, however, sometimes referred to a layman

who performed some minor ecclesiastical office.3 The term

8

clerk, derived from the word Kleros, also referred to a
person who could read and write or to one who was a

scholar. Because the clerk was a scholar, every priest in
the ninth century was to have a clerk assist him.particular-
ly in the liturgical functions.4 The clerk was paid but as

one author stated, . unless the clerk was adequately

paid, his education was not likely to be as high level as
his duties demanded."5
In a book published by Henry Bradshaw Society in
1903, it was pointed out that a clerk in the 17th century
functioned as a professional person with a dedication to
the Church of England. Shown in Table l are the duties for
which a clerk held responsibility and which no layman could
perform.6 So closely was the clerk bound to the Church
that there were even rules designated to regulate his
marriage and his living. The following passage from the
Journal of a 17th century parish clerk indicates how deep
this dedication to the Church of England was:
He is more than a doorkeeper in the House of
God. . . . He is conversant in all the Holy
Offices of the Church; whose life and conversa-
tion ought to be such that he be habitually
prepared at all times to communicate with the
Sick, etc. The Clerk is to take care of the
elements proper to be used in the Holy Sacraments
. by whose good example the congregation may
be excited to Reverence and Devotion. 7
The minor duties of the clerk which mentioned a
variety of responsibilities, including fetching fire and

cleaning the church, may strike one as amusing at first

glance. However, the richness and integration of

9

TABLE 1
DUTIES OF A CLERK

 

 

Main Duties Minor Duties
1. Ability to sing 1. To ring bells; light lamps
2. Ability to read the 2. To fold vestments; array
Epistle and Lesson the altars
3. Ability to assist and 3. To fetch fire; clean
aid in the ministering church
of the Sacraments and
Sacramentals 4. To light lanterns
5. To serve Low Mass
6. To open Church
7. To carry pax
8. To keep registers

 

experience of the clerks, provide an important etymological
context which can be related to some of the objectives
presented for the model Clerkship Program presented later
in this paper. Of special significance is the fact that
the proposed model is to be in relationship to a religious
community which will accent the spiritual dimension
referred to above.

As a rule, clerkship programs developed in the past
because of a need for professional development in areas
where only masters in the area could give the necessary

instruction and provide the necessary experience for

lO
learning. It is pertinent, therefore, to reflect upon
some of the programs for professional development which
developed over the course of years since medieval times.
Initial consideration will be given to clerkship roots
in relation to medieval education.

Beginning with the Middle Ages, one finds that
the concept of clerkship is tied to the Catholic Church
in relation to education. In 1410, the Chief Justice
Ruling that the education of children was a "spiritual
matter, that is, one beyond the cognizance of the King's

8 From the

Bench," was asserting history as well as law.
earliest to the latest Middle Ages, public school educa-
tion throughout the world of the West was a function of
the Church. The definitely local control concept of edu-
cation with a central, general overview was a creation of
the Church. This unit eventually evolved into schools,
universities and colleges. Clerks were members of the
Diocesan Bishop's household and taught in the clergy-
schools.

As instructors in the clergy-schools, the primary
aim of the clerks was to teach "divine letters", that is,
Scripture and the writings of the Fathers of the Church.9
The liberal arts were as necessary to the Church as the
circle of Arts and Sciences to pre-culture. "For without
practical knowledge of other sciences the Holy Scripture

d."1°

cannot be understoo Because the Cathedral schools

11
taught grammar and one liberal art, the instruction held
great value for others besides the clergymen. During
the ninth to the 12th centuries, the Benedictine houses
were centers of learning which ”afforded a home for
scholars."11

The concept of clerkship is also found in the
notion of Journeyman which dates back to the 14th, 15th,
and 16th centuries. Journeymen were persons who desired
professional skill development in a trade. For this
reason, they related to experienced, reliable, professional
persons who were masters in the profession. Journeymen
related to these masters through medieval associations of
merchants or master craftsmen. Groups of such persons
were called Guilds. To learn a trade or a craft in
relationship to a master over a period of time with clearly
defined responsibilities was another connotation of clerk-
ship.

Three main types of popular education which became
dominant in the United States grew out of medieval clerk-
ship roots. These types are as follows:

1. Popular Education Systems of the 19th and

20th centuries derive from the apprentice-
ship system. .Training begins in the lower
grades, moves up into higher grades, into
high school, and finally into college.
Vocational training which looks toward
both a liberal education and a trade educa-
tion was considered to be part of this
system.

2. A system.of Popular Professional training

is rooted in the apprenticeship idea and
aims to provide the engineers, architects,

12

technicians, and other professional per-

sons needed to operate the principal

directive functions of the country.

3. A System of Trade Education is related

to the apprenticeship system. Apprentices

learn on the job. This is the best

supplemented by schooling in a formal

sense. The most successful instances of

local apprenticeship systems have followed

this plan.12
Clerkship, as proposed in this paper, draws upon all three
types of popular American education, but most heavily upon
the third type cited.

The literature suggests the feasibility and
success of professional preparatory programs called inter-
ships including industrial occupations. The term intern
refers to an advanced student or a graduate who is engaged
in supervised practical experience in the area of his pro-
fessional study. It is a term often used in association
with medical students. As yet, however, a systematic,
exact definition of internship does not yet exist because the
concept has not yet been put to rigorous enough analysis.

The different forms of internship which do appear
in some preparatory programs are more by chance than
deliberate design. The general consensus of Opinion is
that internship exists and that it is considered important.
The elements of each type of internship must evolve and
be selected because of particular expectations.

Internship in Educational Administration through
the NASSP in 1956 was initiated to improve the quality of edu-

13

cation in the face of a critical teacher shortage. Out of

13

need came the programi The intern had one mandate, to
improve instruction. His primary task was to perform this
and so make a place for himself in society.

The program in Business Internship sponsored by
the Harvard Business School Association came out of a
desire to meet contemporary problems such as lack of in-
terest or involvement in business in the 1960's. The pro-
gram proposed three essential aspects:

1. To present and to discuss with the interns a

realistic view of the business/industrial
firm as an economic-social-political organi-
zational system.

2. To raise and discuss some of the basic issues
involving these organizational systems about
which they suspected the interns were
especially concerned.

3. To give interns some rudimentary training in
observational skills.14
The main purpose was to provide enough clinical and con-
ceptual skills to make the intern's experience as full as
possible for his future work.

Political internships according to studies done by
Pennsylvania State University15 emphasize them as effec-
tive learning experiences. Significantly in his chapter
"Notes Toward A Theory of Internships", Hennessey states:

"16

"Internships work because they personalize data. He

further says that philosophers might hold that internships

14

provide occasions for Verstehen, or understanding, a

 

quality of research.which implies participation in the
cultural dynamic. Certainly, learning from.experience
has always been considered different from and even
superior to 'book learning'.17
Internships work not so much as devices for gain-
ing knowledge of a factual kind, as for gaining knowledge
of a practical kind. The intern student not only observes,
reads, or thinks about what it is he is learning, but he
also participates in the reality of what it is he is learn-
ing. In this way, the intern or clerk student gains know-
ledge in both intellectual understanding and body experience
of the fact reality. Internships work because such programs
give to professional life and events a reality that makes
them part of the intern's (clerk's) own being.18
Personal knowledge which is essential to profession—
al integrity and competence is developed in great measure
by the absorption of subsidiary rather than focal awareness.
Such awareness and knowledge can come about in part through
trial and error and the almost immediate corrections that
man's perceptive and cognitive apparatus enables him to
make. To understand, the human person needs practice in
the integration of cues and the projection of meaning.
This understanding also comes about in the clerkship situ-
ation where some of the integrative operations of the pro-
fessional expert can be seen, experienced and imitated by

19

the learner. Skill is applied personal knowledge.

15

Without the opportunity to make practical application of
the knowledge learned through lecture, books or observa-
tion, the knowledge often remains abstract and often
lacks personal meaning.

The large amount of time spent by students of

Chemistry, Biology and Medicine in their practical

courses shows how greatly these sciences rely on

the transmission of skills and connoisseurship

from master to novice and offer an impressive

demonstration of the extent to which the art of

knowing has remained unspecifiable at the very

heart of science.20

Conclusively, then, this part of the paper dealt

with the historical development of the concept of clerkship.
Having briefly presented this, the researcher will now con-

sider the second part of the literature review.

The Learning Theories of Dewey, Piaget, and Rogers
As These Relate to Clerkship

 

Participant-observation, as referred to in the
previous section of this paper, is a reasonable learning
principle accepted as one of many underlying the process of
education. The principle lies at the heart of the clerk-
ship concept and program implementation. In this respect,
there is a relationship between education and professional
competence. Both stress development of the mind through

experiential education.

Jean Piaget

 

Certain areas of study and research give consider-

able attention to the idea of experiential education in the

16
development of the mind. In some of the writings of
developmental psychology, for example in those of Piaget,
the point is made that the thinking processes of man
change during childhood, and that the thinking of a four-
year-old is qualitatively very different from.the thinking
of a fourteen-year-old. Piaget indicates that it is not
simply that the older child knows more. Actually, the
older child does different things with what he knows.21
According to Piaget, the thinking of all children tends to
go through the same stages which are age-related. He
cautions, however, that the differences observed are really
individual differences in the maturity of thinking. He
contends that because of heredity and experience some
children are more mature or advanced than others. Maturity
is translated by Piaget as the capacity to act so as to en-

22

large his world and also to organize it. Piaget presents

the child himself as the architect of his own mental growth
and action:

The main keys to the child's mental growth, as
Piaget brings them out are: (l) thg paramount
part played from the start by his Lthe child'g7
own action, (2) the way this turns into a pro-
cess of inWard building-up, that is, of forming
within his mind a continually extending 3
structure corresponding to the world outside.

 

 

Piaget emphasizes that from the very beginning the
child builds up in his mind a model of a world of persisting,
moving objects, and that the child takes a controlling hand
in procuring and organizing all his experiences of the out-

side world. He points out that when a child experiences

17
some interesting activity he is stimulated to repeat that

activity and then to go beyond it only to return to it
after an interval of time. This process Piaget refers to
as the "assimilation" process and regards it as one of
the most crucial steps in the learning process.24
Accompanying the process of "assimilation" is the
process of "accommodation" which Piaget views as modifying
necessarily the integration process. He explains that
certain situations or objects resist the activity of the
child. When this happens, accommodation directs him to
adapt these activities more successfully to the real world
around him. The capacity to meet the challenge of main-
taining balance between assimilation and accommodation
allows for integration of the experience into the already
existing organic scheme of things. Accommodation and
assimilation are, for Piaget, the most important factor of

25 Piaget asserts that

control in the intellectual process.
assimilation and accommodation "determine the whole of our
human experience, all our thought-life and learning, and

h."26 Piaget's whole psychology

all human mental growt
rests upon the principle of interaction between the child
and the world around him. Interaction provides the
material and the motivation for the child's intellectual
growth and maturity.

In summarizing Piaget's theory, then, it can be

said that,

18

The starting point and crux of the child's
intellectual growth is. . . his own action.
And action in the most literaI, physical
sense of the term. From the beginning it is
the patterns of active behavior that govern
his life. Through these he takes in ever
new experiences which become worked into his
action-patterns and continually help to ex-
pand their range and scope. It is actively
turning to look or listen, through following
and repeating, through exploring by touching
and handling and manipulating, through striv-
ing to walk and talk, through dramatic play
and the mastery of every sort of new activity
and skill, that he goes on all the time
enlarging his world and organizing it. His
own physical activity thus enters from.the
outset into his whole world-scheme and indeed
fashions it, supports it and provides the
master-key to it.

 

From.what has been said thus far, it is clear that
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is one that en-
dorses experience as important to the educational process.
His ideas were not developed in isolation of other
theories although it does have unique features of its own.
His educational principles of self-activity, interaction
with the world, accommodation, assimilation and integration
support the concept of clerkship as it has developed to the

present time and influence the Clerkship model proposed.

John Dewey

 

John Dewey believed that all genuine education
comes about through practical experience. He also believed
that not all experience is educative but that it can in
fact be mis-educative if it arrests or distorts the growth

28

of further experience. He felt that education must do

19
more than simply prepare persons for a trade or a profes-
sion although it must indeed do this kind of preparation.
Like Piaget, Dewey believed that education is first and
foremost an internal process of development which requires
a method of the mind.29 Repeatedly in Dewey's works is
discovered the major importance he attached to the scien-
tific method as the way to education.

Dewey recognized that one of the most pressing
needs in society today is that of educating persons to
recognize problems, i.e., things experienced in life which
are questions thrust forward and demanding solutions. Then
there is the need to move toward a solution to these prob-
lems through an organized process of thought and applica-
tion. For Dewey, education was gaining "the power of
reflective attention, the power to hold problems, questions
before the mind. . . power of the mind £95 themind."30
The familiar, the already experienced, he saw as the basis
for moving into the unknown. Thus, experience stands as
central to his theory of education.

To learn from experience is to make a backward
and forward connection between what we do to
things and what we enjoy or suffer from things
in consequence. Under such conditions, doing
becomes a trying, an experiment with the world
to find out what it is like. The undergoing
becomes instruction--discovery of the connection
of things.31
Dewey pointed out that sound educational experience

involves both continuity and interaction between the learner

and what is learned. He stressed that "the principle of

20

continuity of experience both takes up something from those
which have gone before and modifies in some way the quality
of those which come after."32 Experiences which are dis-
connected from.each other Dewey cited as dispersive and

disintegrated. Such experiences dissipate energy and cause

persons to become undisciplined in thought.33

Like Piaget, Dewey believed that the development of
experience comes about through interaction. For Dewey,
however, this interaction was primarily a social process the
quality of which could be realized to the degree in which
individuals formed a community group. Dewey stressed the
importance of community in the educational process:

Society not only continues to exist by trans-
mission, by communication, but it may fairly be
said to exist in transmission, in communication.
There is more than a verbal tie between the words
common, community and communication. Men live in
a community in virtue of the things which they
have in common; and communication is the way in
which they come to possess things in common. What
they must have in common in order to form.a come
munity or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations,
knowledge--a common understanding--like-mindedness,
as the sociologists say. Such things cannot be
passed from one to another, like bricks; they can-
not be shared as persons would share a pie by
dividing it into physical pieces. The communica-
tion which ensures participation in a common under-
standing is one which secures similar emotional
and intellectual dispositions--like wazs of respond-
ing to expectations and requirements.3

The concept of community as related to the educa-
tional process by Dewey is significantly important and
embodied in the Model Clerkship Program proposed later in

this paper.

21
Dewey's view of the individual person was that of
one faced with a problem that is both real and meaningful
to him. Between the recognition of the problem and its
resolution, Dewey cites five steps as necessary in the
process of reflective thought:
1. Suggestions leaping forward to a solution;
2. The clarification of the problem which is to
be solved;
3. The use of hypotheses or tentative solutions;
4. Reasoning about possible results of acting
on one or another hypothesis and choosing one;
5. Testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative
action.35
In citing these five steps, Dewey was emphasizing
the importance of the individual as learner participating
in the formation of purposes which direct his activities.
The reflective-thought process caused one to slow down be-
fore acting and to judge with foresight the consequences
of the action anticipated by the individual. Dewey
stressed consistently and urgently throughout his life the
need for man to act intelligently and with purpose, for in
this way only was man free. He said,
The only freedom that is of enduring importance
is freedom of intelligence, that is to say, free-
dom of observation and of judgment exercised in
afigiifBgf purposes that are intrinsically worth-

Mbreover, Dewey defines freedom as,

22

freedom of judgment and of power to carry

deliberately chosen ends into execution.

the power to frame purposes, to judge wisely

to evaluate desires by the consequences

which will result from acting upon them;

power to select and gpder means to carry out

ends 1nto operation.

The business of education was for Dewey the busi-
ness of helping man develop his mind and order his will.
He stressed the need for a philosophy of experience so
that a person not be at the mercy of every intellectual
breeze that happened along. Learning was for Dewey a
matter of teaching a person how to live as a fully human
person. Experience provided the material motivating a man
to action. The educator's responsibility, as Dewey saw it,
was that of seeing in what direction an experience was
heading and to help organize the experiences of the im-
mature. The key to education is providing the conditions,
the environment, which is conducive to personal growth.
Dewey says that "the crucial educational problem is that of
procuring the postponement of immediate action upon desire
until observation and judgment have intervened."38
Clerkship programs to date have stressed the value

of experience in the learning process. They have also to
a degree been concerned with the development of the mind.
Few, if any to date, have been concerned with the purpose
for which a man acts in an ethical sense. Few, if any,
have addressed the point of discipline necessary for man to

develop correct judgment and right action. Education to

date within clerkship programs have centered primarily on

23

professional development in the sense of preparing one
for proficiency in some particular field. A clerkship
program which addresses both professional and personal
development becomes crucial in the Model Clerkshop Pro-

gram.presented later in this paper.

Carl R. Rogers

 

Like both Piaget and Dewey, Carl Rogers advocates
experiential education. Like Dewey, he believes that a
person must be personally involved in shaping his own
decisions. Again like Dewey, Rogers believes that educa-
tors must provide the climate within which persons can
grow. Rogers contends that all learning is self-initiated,
that it all proceeds from within the individual. He says:

Let me define a bit more precisely the elements
which are involved in. . . experiential educa-
tion. It has a quality of personal involvement
--the whole person in both his feeling and cog-
nitive aspects being in the learning event. It
is self-initiated. Even when the impetus or
stimulus comes from without, the sense of dis-
covery of reaching out, of grasping and compre-
hending,cnmes from within.3

Rogers also sees the aim of education as Dewey sees
it. But Rogers sees more. He believes that man must not
only be brought to a point of freedom in the sense that
Dewey used this term, but that man must be brought to the
point where he is able to live freely in process, that is,
the process of growing and developing his own potentiality

so that he might choose his own direction in his learning.

Where Dewey advocated a directive approach to teaching

24

persons how to live and act, Rogers advocated an indirec-
tive approach which leaves the person totally free to
choose for himself the direction he wishes to go. Rogers
believes in the basic goodness of the human person and
proposes that, allowed to pursue his own development, man
will attain self-actualization or fullness of maturity.
At the same time, Rogers very honestly admits of the pain
the attainment of maturity involves and the ambivalence of
man in face of this pain. He states:

Human beings. . . are ambivalently eager to

develop and learn. The reason for the ambiva-

lence is that any significant learning involves

a certain amount of pain, either pain connected

with the learning itself or distress connected

with giving up previous learnings.40

The only way a man is going to remain through the

pain of growth is if he has commitment. Rogers points out
that commitment is more than simple decision and that com-
mitment is possible only for those who have attained some
degree of personal integration.

Thus commitment is more than a decision. It is

the functioning of an individual who is searching

for the directions which are emerging within him-

self. . . . It is this individual creation of a

tentative personal truth through action which is

the essence of commitment.
And again:

Man is most successful in such a commitment when

he is functioning as an integrated, whole unified

individual. The more that he is functioning in

this total manner the more confidence he has in

the directions which he unconsciously chooses. He

feels a trust in his experiencing, of which, even

if he is fortunate, he has only partial glimpse
in his awareness. . . Commit. . . the kind of

25
purposeful and meaningful direction which is
only gradually achieved by the individual who
has come increasingly to live closely in
relationship with his own experiencing--a
relationship in which his unconscious tenden-
cies are as much respected as are his conscious
choices.

Rogers stresses the role of educators to be that of
providing persons with optimal conditions for human develop-
ment. At the same time, Rogers does not put into the hands
of educators the right to evaluate the experiences of their
students. Instead, Rogers presses for the freedom to let
students evaluate their own experiences. This does not
mean to abandon students to themselves but rather to let
them take the lead in expressing what they feel about an
experience, how they learned or did not learn from an experi-
ence. The educator's role is simply that of facilitating
the process whereby students can come to a point of honest-
ly being able to evaluate themselves. Unless the evaluation
comes from within the person himself, Rogers believes that
the person will never be able to mature or integrate his
life. Evaluation of self, as Rogers points out, demands a
high degree of self-assurance, risk, and honesty with one-
self:

The locus of evaluation is. . . established firm-
ly within the person. It is his own experience
which provides the value information or feedback.
This does not mean that he is not open to all
evidence he can obtain from other sources. .
There is also involved in this valuing process a
letting oneself down into the immediacy of what
one is experiencing, endeavoring to sense and to

clarify all its complex meanings, trying to
listen to himself, until he is able to discern

26

the exact flavor of the feelings he is experi-
encing, . . . trying to get close to himself
not denying in his awareness the pro-
cesses going on within himself.42
The experiences provided by professional clerkship
or internship programs have been designed, in many cases,
to provoke self-evaluation. At the same time, however,
evaluation by a supervisor or director has often been such
that it has destroyed the possibility for self-evaluation.
Written evaluations of students, for example, allow for no
student input and have often been harmful to the persons
evaluated. The contemporary emphasis on weekly meetings
and monthly conferences with supervisors or directors is an
attempt to move away from.the old manner of evaluation and
move toward experiences where individuals have the oppor-
tunity to evaluate themselves and plan for ways to strengthen
their weak areas.
The concept of the locus of evaluation being within

the person himself is an important aspect of the model

Clerkship program proposed later in this paper.

Summary

Chapter 11 included the examination of the litera-
ture relating to the present study. The literature review
was divided into two sections: the first section concen-
trated on the historical development of clerkship. The
second section was concerned with the learning process as

set forth in the theories of Piaget, Dewey, and Carl Rogers.

27
With respect to the three theorists, the follow-

ing was found to be significant: 1) Piaget stressed the
principles of self-activity, interaction with the world,
accommodation, assimilation and integration as crucial to
the learning process. His main concern was cognitive
development of the child; 2) Dewey accented that education
is experiential and that man must develop a "method of the
mind" if he is to become educated. Education was pre-
sented by Dewey as a social process able to be judged by
the degree to which men formed community among themselves.
Dewey proposed freedom, the right to frame correct purposes
and follow these to their goal, as the goal of education.
The business of education.was that of preparing man for
right living; 3) Carl Rogers believed that all education is
self-initiated and that man must be brought to the point of
being able to live freely in process. He stressed the aim
of education to that of facilitating learning so that man
might become a self-actualized person. Rogers also pointed
out that reaching this point of maturity requires pain and
commitment on the part of the person entering the growth-
process.

Throughout Chapter II the researcher made applica-
tion of the three theories to the currently operative and

proposed clerkship programs.

CHAPTER III

DESIGN OF THE STUDY
Chapter Three includes: 1) a description of the
population used in the study, the instruments, and the

procedures involved in collecting the data; 2) a present-

ation of the data; 3) a summary.

Description of Population, Instruments, Procedures

 

For purposes of this study three professional
centers having internship or clerkship programs were used
and a needs assessment was made of the Home of Mercy
Clerkship Program. The professional centers included the
following: an urban law clinic, a medical school, and a
college of education.

In each of the professional centers the program
director, a professional staff person, and a program parti-
cipant were interviewed. In doing the needs assessment of
the Home of Mercy Clerkship Program, the two program
directors, the director of professional development, four
program consultants, and three clerks in the Home of Mercy
Clerkship Program.were interviewed.

In the three professional centers as well as in the

Home of Mercy, the structured interview was the tool used

28

29

for gathering data. One set of interview questions was
prepared for the professional centers while a different
set of questions was prepared for the Home of Mercy. In
all cases where persons were interviewed, however, the
same procedure was followed for gathering the data. Each
interview session was tape-recorded by the researcher and
later transcribed. A copy of the interview questions was
given each interviewee at the time of the interview.
Participants were not required to answer the questions in
writing.

The particular instrument used for the three pro-
fessional centers was designed after receiving responses
to a pilot study made using the proposed interview ques-
tions. These questions were sent, together with a cover
letter and introduction (Appendices A and B), to a select
group of eleven persons who had some involvement to a
greater or less extent in a clerkship-type program prior to
this time. Nine persons responded to the pilot study ques-
tionnaire and from these the researcher was able to design
appropriate revised interview questions for maximum.benefit
to the study. (Appendix C)

The interview questions for assessing the needs for
the Home of Mercy Clerkship Program were prepared without
submitting them to critique through some form of pilot
study. (Appendix D)

Limitations to the preparation of the interview in-

struments may include the researcher's having had personal

3O
relationships with each of the eleven individuals chosen
for the pilot study. The researcher recognizes that this
‘may have created bias of the results of the survey. Also
acknowledged is the small number of persons in the initial
pilot study and the lack of critique prior to presentation
of interview questions prepared for the participants in
the needs assessment for the Home of Mercy Clerkship

Program.

Presentation of the Data

 

For purposes of clarity, the data presentation is
divided into two sections. The first part includes data
relating to the three professional centers of law, medicine,
and education. The second part consists of data pertaining
to the needs assessment of the Home of Mercy Clerkship

Program.

An Urban Law Clinic

 

The first center to be considered is an urban law
clinic located in a large metropolitan city. The clinic is
one of five operating out of a particular university in
that city. It is the only clinic located in what one would
call the inner-city and so is unique in this respect.

The program began, as it exists currently, in 1966
with a large grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity,
a poverty program. It was designated a research demonstra-

tion project which aimed at attacking the broadly spread

31

poverty problems in the city.

Item one on the list of interview questions asked
the interviewee: How would you describe the needs your
organization tried to meet in starting this program?

The Director of the Urban Law Clinic described
the Program as having three dimensions: First, it provides
a clinical office for the indigent. Secondly, it acts as
a research component which could have an impact on law
school curriculum, Thirdly, it serves as a community
action agent which is able to deal with poverty problems.

The Staff Attorney represented the program.as
designed to meet the needs of law students who need not
only academic concepts but actual law experience in the
courts, drawing up of pleadings, dealing with clients, and
limited exposure to law practice.

The Clerk explained legal clerkship in the sense
that he is taught to prepare all documents which are cri—
tiqued by the staff attorney who supervises and evaluates
the preparation of legal contracts for court presentation.

Question three asked: How would you describe the
purpose of your program?

In the words of the Director, the purpose of the
program was outlined as "training students, law students,
to appreciate it; to train them in entry level professional
skills, and to give them an understanding of how to polish

those skills. The traditional law school does not do this."

32

The Staff Attorney described the purpose of the
program as two-fold: "To provide quality delivery of
legal service to a community that has been disenfranchised,
priced out of range, and to provide the students with as
wide a range of practical legal experience as possible on
the criminal side, on the civil side and to expose them to
different courts that are within the immediate locale of
the university."

The Legal Clerk stated that the purpose of the pro-
gram is "to provide professional services to our clients
and to become proficient at providing their services, that
is, the handling of cases, interviewing clients, working
effectively with indigent persons who are unable to articu-
late their needs."

Item number six asks: What are some specific acti-
vities that are a consistent part of the program?

The Director stated the following: "Auditing one of
the criminal courts in the area with a view toward inter-
viewing and representing clients in minor criminal matters,
preparing the pleadings, auditing criminal court and on-
going client case load and assessing student progress."

The Clinic Staff Attorney listed: "legal research,
developing various memoranda on legal positions, drafting
and filing of legal motions, interviewing of witnesses,
negotiating with prosecutors and city attorneys, trial work
and representation" to be the consistent elements of the

legal clerkship program.

33

The Legal Clerk included the following activities
he saw to be a consistent part of the clerkship program:
preparation of court cases, learning the types of litiga-
tion that have to be done, recording the facts of court
cases and interacting with the supervising staff attorney.

Question number eleven asked the following: How
would you describe some of the problems you experience in
relation to the program?

In describing some of these problems, the Director
stated that 1) there is need for greater control of
student experience. He explained that students placed in
law offices are under the complete control of the attorneys
in these offices. The attorneys in those offices have
direct control over the student's experiences. When an
attorney does not take the responsibility seriously for
training the law clerk, this sometimes leads to a profession-
al stalemate for the clerk, 2) schedule demands cause
conflict between class and clinical experience.

A third problem as pointed up by the Director arises
from.the different ways of perceiving the Law School:
"Those who see it as a graduate school have different
expectations from those who perceive it to be a professional
school."

The professional Staff Attorney is in agreement with
the Director with respect to the class and clinical experi-

ence conflict. The Staff Attorney also stated that because

34

litigation is a long process students are often unable to
see issues through to the end. Time is also cited as a
problem. Clerks are not paid for their time in the clinic.
Yet, it is impossible for them to work in order to earn
needed money.

Lastly, the Staff Attorney suggested that the
number of students per attorney is too many for the attorney
to work with effectively.

The Legal Clerk presented as the major problem the
fact that class and the hours for clinical experience are
often arranged at conflicting times.

The following question was framed in item.number
twelve: What changes would you like to make in the program?

To this question the Director offered no response,
but the Staff Attorney suggested that more credit be given
for the work done. For example, that special certification
be given to the student with clinical experience.

The Law Clerk suggested need for a little more
structure to the program, including instruction with speci-
fied hours for lecture. He also indicated a need for more
variety in case experience.

Item number thirteen asked: Does your program have
a definite method of evaluating the effectiveness for the
participants? If so, would you please describe the methods.

In response to this question the Director said the

following: "Materials of students are evaluated according

35

to completeness of file, neatness, research memos, avail-
ability for floor duty (in the clinic) and court appear-
ances." The Director also mentioned that anonymous grades
are given.

The Staff Attorney cited the following methods of
evaluation: court presentations; how well clients are
served; drafts for pleadings to be corrected; assessment of
case file.

According to the Law Clerk, evaluation consists of
no strict methods although there is "a high level of expect-

ation and the grades are difficult."

A Professional Medical Center
The second professional center where interviewing
took place is a college of human medicine through which a
Geriatric Medical Clerkship Program is offered to pre-
medical and medical students. The Director and the Pro-
fessional Staff Person in this instance are the same indivi-
dual. The researcher recognizes that this poses a limita-
tion to this aspect of the study. The clerk interviewee in
this instance is a pre-medical student.
In response to the first interview question, the
Director/Staff person responded as follows:
There is a definite need to study particular
biological, psychological and sociological
changes that take place with aging along with
and as part of the normal aging process. And
some chronic diseases affect pe0ple of all ages

but are primarily found in those 65 years of age
and older. It would seem there is a definite

36
felt need for a clerkship in which medical stu-
dents in their third and fourth years, have an
opportunity to get some experience before going
into a residency program to do histories and
physicals and give total patient care to older
people.

The Pre-Medical Clerk cited that the program was
designed to provide a medium through which pre-medical
and medical students could have the opportunity of finding
out from the aged persons themselves how they felt about
aging.

In describing the purpose of the program as asked
for in the interview item number three, the Director/Staff
person indicated that the program aims to provide accurate
clinical experience in treating normal and pathological
cases. The Director/Staff person spoke about the aim of
providing both academic and clinical experience for pre-
medical and medical students who are interested in doing
preceptorships prior to entering medical school, or, for
those who are already in medical school, of providing the
opportunity for a better understanding of the aging person.

The Pre-Medical Clerk indicated that the purpose of
the program was to provide experience with older persons so
that course work could be integrated with real life experi-
ences.

In listing some of the specific activities of item
number six which asks for those which are a consistent part

of the program, the Director/Staff person listed the follow-

ing: seminars, small group discussions on body changes,

37

sociological and psychological changes, use of Problem
Oriented Medical Records, and visitation of the elderly
in extended care facilities.

The Pre-Medical Clerk cited the following compo-
nents as consistent elements in the program : visiting the
elderly in extended care facilities once or twice a week
at the clerk's discretion and two special activities which
are assigned.

In describing some of the problems experienced in
the program, the Director/Staff person indicated the
following: finding a sufficient number of patients in
order to provide adequate experience for the student; the
need for consent of the patient, the family, and the coop-
eration of the institution; and providing learning experi-
ences when the class schedules are already so full.

With respect to suggestions about program changes,
the Director/Staff person indicated that the program has
not been in operation long enough to warrant changes. How-
ever, there could be an increase in the duration and
variety of experiences.

The Pre-Medical Clerk suggested that the supervisor
under whom one is doing his clerkship know more about what
could interest him so that experiences could be planned to
meet each individual's needs.

With regard to program evaluation, the Director/

Staff person stated that the evaluation is based on case

38

write-ups, clerk presentations, formulation of care and
management plans for the elderly patients taken care of
by the clerk, observation of skill and sensitivity in com-
municating and interacting with the elderly patient. A
personal evaluation is expected from the clerk on his
view of the program in terms of the nature and scope of
content presented, the effectiveness of the methods and
activities and a critique of the geriatric clerkship as
it relates to the rest of medical education.

The Pre-Medical Clerk stated that the Director/
Staff person evaluates the clerk according to the time
spent with the elderly and the ability to correlate class

learning with the field experience.

A Professional Education Center

The third center for consideration in this study is
the Elementary Internship Program for teachers sponsored by
the College of Education in one of the large Michigan
universities.

In describing the needs the university was trying
to meet in starting an Elementary Internship Program, the
Director of the program stated that its purpose was to
prepare persons for the future of education and to initiate
a program that could be brought before the Board of Educa-
tion as a viable alternative to existing programs. Its pur-
pose was also to create a better professional image of the

university with respect to its concern for serving people,

39

searching out needs, and attempting to fulfill these for
the betterment of society. The Director emphasized the
shift of purpose in this program from an academic orienta-
tion where the image of the university is derived from
research or scholarly activity to that of serving a useful
purpose in society.

The Staff Consultant-Coordinator described the
needs the organization was trying to meet as follows: to
train teachers to become more capable of operating independ-
ently and creatively; to integrate teaching theory with
teaching experience prior to receiving certification; and
to provide daily evaluation through intern-consultant avail-
ability and assistance.

The Elementary Intern cited the needs the organiza-
tion tried to meet as indicated below: to bridge the gap
between academic study and field experience; to increase the
traditional ten-week student teaching experience which had
seemed inadequate since it did not give enough background to
the intern-teacher prior to certification; to initiate a
process approach to teacher education wherein the things
learned at one phase of professional preparation are inte-
grated into the next phase.

In describing the purpose of the Educational Intern-
ship Program, the Director did not give a direct answer but
instead referred the researcher to program brochure

materials that contained the following definition:

40

The Elementary Internship Program provides one
and one-half years of carefully guided classroom
experiences, a solid foundation in general educa-
tion and the liberal arts, and special depth of
understanding in the behavioral sciences
professional education courses are organized into
compact and related offerings so that the student
has guided experiences with pupils at the same
time he is learning how to teach. . . During the
fourth year the student has his own classroom
which he teaches under careful supervision and
guidance of an Intern-Consultant.

The Intern-Consultant StaffIPerson cited the pur-
pose for which the program was initiated as that of pro-
viding for the teaching profession the very best type
teacher possible. The Internship Program offers opportun-
ity to both the intern-teachers and intern-consultants to
assess the capacity and professional readiness for the
classroom responsibility. The Intern-Consultant pointed
out that 15 to 20 percent of the students who go through the
intern program and experience what it means to be in the
schools, to be a teacher, drop out of the program prior to
graduation. The program, therefore, serves to help students
discover their true professional inclinations.

The Elementary Intern Teacher described the purpose
of the program as that of preparing prospective teachers in
the best way possible. The component of classroom experi-
ence was indicated as crucial to this preparation.

The Director gave no direct answer but suggested
that the researcher consult the Elementary Internship litera-

ture available for the listing of activities found to be a

consistent part of the program. Included in these materials

41

are the following: teaching methodology which is inte-
grated with teaching; supervision by an Intern-Consultant;
required course work; and responsibility for classroom
teaching.

The Intern-Consultant Staff Person specified the
following activities as a consistent part of the Elementary
Intern Program: a screening process that occurs during the
sophomore year; classroom experience in a public school;
integration of course work, methodology, and classroom
experience.

On the same subject, the Elementary Intern spoke of
the importance of having consistent program.activities and
cited the following examples of such activities: monthly
meetings; integration of methodology, course work and
classroom experience; seminars; research; clinical work;
evaluation with intern consultants.

Some of the problems experienced in relation to the
program were described and discussed by the Director.

These included the following: parent-teacher expectations
of student performance; union intervention in some schools
prohibiting student placement for intern experiences; fewer
new openings for interns to move into teaching positions
upon completion of a degree due to the imbalance in supply
and demand situations for teachers.

The Intern Consultant cited the following as prob-
lems experienced in the intern program: trying to get in-

tern consultants to work equally as hard with competent

42
interns as with those having problems; being able to
assure interns placement in the schools upon completion
of graduation.

When asked to list the changes he would recommend
relative to the intern program, the Director referred the
researcher to the Intern-Consultant Staff Person. The
Intern-Consultant Staff Person indicated that changes are
continually taking place within the Internship Program»

In considering whether or not the Elementary Intern-
ship Program has definite methods for evaluating its effec-
tiveness for the participants, the Director referred the
researcher to the Intern-Consultant Staff Person who shared
with the researcher his deep concern for this aspect of the
programt The Intern-Consultant Staff Person offered samples
of the evaluation instruments used within the educational
Elementary Internship Programr These instruments included
questionnaires which the student interns completed and
evaluation forms which the supervisors filled out.

The Elementary Intern summarized the methods of
evaluation in the following manner: consistent meetings
between interns and consultants; evaluation forms; seminars;
oral feedback from.peers, teachers, principals and con-
sultants.

A structured interview format was designed and
implemented in each of the professional centers. The per-

sonal interview revealed program components and the

43

structure of program.operations.

Needs Aesessment of the Home of Mercy Clerkship;Program

Over the last two to three years the Religious
Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, have begun working
with persons who have come to them seeking definite ways
for professional development and which are directly or
indirectly related to health care. These same persons
have also expressed a desire for a stable means of dedica-
tion and service to society through the Church by means of
their professional identity.

The Religious Sisters of Mercy are a comprehensive
health care community in which all the various disciplines
relate to the purpose of the Community's work which is best
described as the alleviation of suffering. Two years ago a
clerkship program was designed and implemented by the
Sisters in order to foster the professional development of
individuals and help them intensify their personal capacity
for effective service to society. At the same time, the
clerkship program was designed to offer a stable way of
expressing dedication to the Church beyond the ordinary way
of service found among other professionals.

In order to project into the future the needs of
persons dedicated for life to health care and desirous of
constant professional challenge and development, a structured
needs assessment interview instrument was designed and

implemented by the researcher. This instrument was used with

 

44
the Directors, Professional Staff Persons and the Clerks
currently participating in the Clerkship Program.as it
has been in operation and sponsored by the Home of Mercy
to the present time. A copy of this instrument is in-
cluded in the appendix of the thesis.

The Administrator/Directors of the Mercy Clerkship
Program sponsored by the Home of Mercy summarized the back-
ground of persons who have already come or are seeking
admission to the Clerkship Program: Each person has at
least a bachelor's degree and the majority have a master's
degree in some field or expertise; each has had some ex-
perience of community; some professional backgrounds relate
directly to health care while others do not; there is
desire on the part of persons for further professional
development; each has a real sense of professional excellence.
Of prime importance in the Mercy Clerkship Program, is the
desire persons have for integrating the professional side
of their lives with all the other aspects of their lives.
In addition, there is a profound search for deeper
community relationships.

The Director of Professional Development has res-
ponsibility for helping the Clerks define their goals for
professional development and outlining with them the educa-
tional programs for achieving these goals. The Director
stated that the backgrounds of persons coming into Clerk-

ship inelude nursing, education, medicine, sociology,

 

 

 

45
biology, business, counseling, dentistry, law and economics,
health care administration, and secretarial skills.
The four Consultants to the Clerkship Program in-

clude other elements in the backgrounds of persons in the

Clerkship Program. Some persons seek personal counseling.

Others find themselves frustrated because they are unable
to release the professional potentiality in the restrictive
work situations in which they find themselves. Some seek
for ways to integrate the professional dimension within

their persons. Still others are searching for a way to

relate their professions to other professions in order to
increase their professional effectiveness.
Three of the Clerk participants described their

own background. One Clerk has a degree in political science

and economics. A second Clerk holds a degree in health

care administration. The third Clerk is a cardiologist.

All three Clerks came into the Clerkship Program for further
professional development but professional development
understood as a challenge to the direction and growth
patterning of their whole lives.

In listing those elements seen as common to all
persons who have come to the Mercy Clerkship Program, the
Administrator/Directors included the following: continuing
professional education; working collaboratively with others

with whom one forms mutual professional relationships in

order to expand one's professional capacities; participation

 

 

 

46
in liturgical celebrations in order to itensify one's
spiritual life in community; wearing a specified pro-
fessional garb to sign one as a member of a particular
profession; participation in a community way of life;
participation in community discussions and seminars in

order to be challenged to specify more clearly one's parti-

 

cular professional area .

The four program Consultants cited the following

as essential elements for a Clerkship Program: desire for

 

complementary professional relationships for mutual
benefit; desire to clarify the purpose and meaning of life
and to begin to integrate one's professional life into the
whole of life's patterns; a desire to relate to persons
who have a high level of professional excellence; see
professional development as a comprehensive process rather
than in an isolated manner; desire to live in some form of
a community way of life; need for order and structure in

personal and professional development.

The Clerks themselves suggested the following

elements as necessary for Clerkship: desire to be a Clerk;

need for a larger professional vision within which the
smaller vision of the particular professional fits and
relates; need for more meaning and direction in one's life;
need for a stable point of reference in one's life; need
for community relationships; a place to work out profes-
sional problems with others who are committed and qualified;

need for complementary relationships of varied professional

 

47
disciplines; need to be professionally challenged; need for
stable contact persons to relate to personally and pro—
fessionally; desire stability personally and professionally;
and finally it was indicated that the program elements are

not comparable to other programs.
With reference to the needs of clerks other than

 

professional development, the Administrators included the

 

following: living near the Home of Mercy; participation in

a community way of life; a program time limitation of not
less than one year expressed formally in terms of an agree- I
ment with the Mercy Community which is the stable point of

reference for the Clerk; some project to accomplish which

serves as a medium for relating one's professional expertise

to his peers and to the Mercy Community and which allows

for personal and professional integration; assignment of

personal and professional advisors to each Clerk; facing

the daily problems peculiar to the specific discipline of

a Clerk's particular profession; establish relationships

‘with persons who are professionally excellent and who will
challenge the Clerk to greater professional excellence;

be self-supporting; establishing program fees.
The Director of Professional Development cited the

following as needs of the Clerks: integration of physical,

psychological, social, emotional and professional aspects

of a Clerk's life; professional excellence; and being able

to support oneself financially.

 

48

The four Consultants indicated these needs of

Clerks: professional excellence; a program experience

offering a combination of study, work and play; a system

of payment for assistance given in the program; integration

of all aspects of a person's life.

The Clerks expressed their needs other than those

related to professional development as follows: incorpora—

tion into a community way of life; personal growth and
development .

The Administrators of the program made the follow-

ing recommendations in regard to staffing: a professionally

qualified person from within the Mercy Center is to work
with the Clerks in terms of professional development;
Sisters from.within the Mercy Center are to work with the
Clerks in terms of personal formation; Sisters dedicated for
life to the Mercy Center and who themselves have achieved a
measurable degree of professional excellence are available
to the Clerks; persons from.within the Mercy Center who can

serve as Staff persons to the Clerks; persons with a vision

and expertise in varied fields of study.
The Consultants suggested the following:
be one-to-one relationships with the Clerks; that each

Staff person be required to have a definite professional

identity; that there be program organizers, program adminis-

trators and program evaluators.
The Clerks expressed a need for the following in

the program staff personnel: Directors of the program who

 

 

that there

 

49
have knowledge of individual persons participating;
Consultants for professional and personal development
needs; a professionally strong person as program director;
a person in charge of personal formation.

The Program Administrators indicated the following

as means for effective evaluation: achievement of high

grades in professional studies; achievement of goals set
in areas of work including short-term goals and objectives
for accomplishing particular things; punctuality and
consistent presence at required activities; weekly con-
ferences with the Program.Directors and the Professional
Development Person; the degree to which the Clerks become
part of the professidnal areas they are continually pre-
paring for and in which Clerks are able to exercise change
agent effectiveness; the degree to which Clerks are able to
enter into relationships with one another and with other
persons; ability to move in a complementary professional
‘way'with the life style of the Mercy Community.

The Director of Professional Development indicated
evaluation should be based on: fulfillment of clearly
stated.goals and objectives; measurement resulting from
the use of an objective tool such as a test, a question-

naire, a survey or an essay.
The four Consultants cited the following as evalu-

ation indicators of the program: personal growth of the

Clerk; completion of short-term goals and objectives set

 

 

 

50
with and by the Clerks; joint evaluation of program
experiences; professional assessment from the institution
and other persons the Clerks are working with; and grades
in the area of professional study.

Problems that would interfere with program effec-
tiveness were cited by the Director as including the
following: lack of a pre-clerkship program as orientation
into the Clerkship Program; inadequate numbers of staff
because of other demands on their time; lack of involvement
by Clerks with guests who come to the Home of Mercy; amount
of time spent with the Clerk as compared to his need for
being alone; delay in meeting critical profeSsional prob-
lems because personnel capable of meeting these problems
are not available; keeping up with practical problems of
daily living; reticence to enter the professional domain;
avoidance of professional challenge; the problem of rele-
vancy of course content that is challenging at the univer-
sities; and perception of the professional world as sterile.

The Director of Professional Development indi-
cated the following as problems: inability to follow a
planned program effectively; and immaturity.

The Clerks expressed problems as follows: with-
drawing from commitment to Clerkship; unwillingness to
submit to the requirements of profeSsional and personal

growth; wanting to act in isolation; unfamiliarity with a

process approach to professional development; not living up

51
to the goals and objectives one sets mutually with the

Mercy Community.

Summary

Chapter three fulfilled two purposes. One pur-
pose was to describe the population used in the study,
the instruments, and the procedures used in collating the
data. The second purpose was to present the data relevant
to the three professional centers of law, medicine, and
education, which have clerkship/internship programs, and
to present the data concerned with the needs assessment of
the Home of Mercy Clerkship Program.

The population in the study consisted of three
professional centers in law, medicine, and education and
the Home of Mercy in Alma, Michigan. Each professional
center and the Home of Mercy had an active clerkship/
internship program. The Director, a Professional Staff
Person, and a clerk/intern from each professional center
were interviewed. In the Home of Mercy, the two Administrator/
Directors, the four Consultants, and three Clerks were inter-
viewed.

Exploration of the three professional centers in the
study and gathering of data for the needs assessment was
done by use of the structured interview. Thirteen questions
were asked of each interviewee. Each participant was given
a copy of the question at the time of the interview. In

the case of both the professional centers and the needs

52

assessment, six questions and responses were selected for
presentation in this paper. Basically, the six questions
had reference to purposes for which the program began, the
needs the program tried to meet, the activities identified
as consistent components of the program, problems
encountered in carrying out the program, suggestions for
program change, and methods and tools used to evaluate the
program and program participants. The intent of the inter-
view questions was to determine program elements and com-
ponents necessary to a clerkship program and which could be
incorporated into a model clerkship program which is pre-

sented later in this paper.

CHAPTER IV

RESULTS OF THE STUDY

Chapter Four consists of the following: 1) The
results of the study of the three professional centers;
2) and the findings of the needs assessment of the<31erk-

ship Program in the Home of Mercy.

The Three Professional Centers of Law,
Medicine, and Education

In each of the professional centers of law, medicine
and education respectively, interviews with the directors
of the internship/clerkship program revealed the needs for
which each person felt the organization had been created.
In all three centers the directors depicted the program as
designed to provide the student with a wide range of pro-
fessional experiences which were intended as a means of in-
tegrating academic study and professional practice. The
overall opinion was that the traditional professional pro-
gram had not done this successfully and that the current
programs were an attempt to remedy this situation.

Although seen as a change agent for law curriculum,
the design of the urban law clinic clerkship program was

basically directed toward meeting the immediate, practical

53

54
needs of clerk law students. Besides assimilation of
academic concepts, the clerks needed actual law experience
which could help make concrete the concepts they learned
in the classroom. The clerkship program afforded students
a range of needed experiences including the following:
participation in court sessions with limited exposure to
law practice; drawing up of pleadings; drafting and filing
of legal motions; and interviewing and representing clients,
especially the indigent who are unable to articulate their
own needs.

By means of actual experience, the clerk was
trained in entry level professional skills and under pro-
fessional supervision was taught how to polish these
skills through repeated use of them.

Problems have been encountered in the Clerkship
Program. One problem was cited as that of conflict between
scheduled times for class and times designated for clinical
experience. Another problem has been the stalemate created
for clerks when attorneys responsible for the clinical
experience of clerks failed to take the responsibility
seriously. A third problem is rooted in the difference of
expectation by those who perceive the law school as a
graduate school and by those who perceive it as a profes-
sional school. A fourth and last problem cited relative
to the clerkship program has been that of clerks not being

paid for their time in the clinic. Clerks have needed to

55
earn money to support themselves and yet it has been
impossible for them to attend the law school and work at
an outside job at the same time.

Evaluation methods used in the law clerkship pro-
gram were presented as loosely structured. There was no
evidence of any specific criteria for evaluation of either
the law clerk students or of the clerkship program.per se.
Evaluation of the clerk was left to the subjective judgment
of the attorney under whom a law clerk student was placed.
The attorney made his judgment of the clerk on the basis
of how well he thought clients were served, court pre-
sentations were made, drafts for pleadings were corrected
and case files were completed and in order.

Few suggestions were made for improvement of the
law clerkship program. There was, however, a need felt by
the law clerk for more program structure with specified
hours for lecture and for a greater variety of experience.

A geriatric medical clerkship program was offered
through a college of human medicine. The program was open
to both the preemedical and medical students. The purpose
of the program was two-fold: l) to familiarize program
participants with the particular biological, psychological
and sociological changes that take place in persons
through the normal process of aging; 2) to provide accurate
clinical experience in treating older persons who are

normal or pathological.

56

In addition to classroom.instruction3provision was
made for students to have clinical experience with the
aged through actual visitation once or twice a week with
elderly people in extended care facilities. Assignment of
two special activities was given; seminars and small group
discussions on body changes, sociological and psychological
changes were held and the experience of using problem
oriented medical records was provided. By means of actual
experience with elderly persons, the pre-medical or medical
students were sensitized to the needs of elderly persons,
the chronic diseases that afflict them, and to the effects
the aging process has on different types of people. The
clinical experience provided practice for the students in
doing the histories and physicals of older people. The
‘medical clerkship experience taught the medical students
how to give older persons total patient care.

Two problems related to the clerkship program were
cited. One problem was that of time for providing learning
experiences when the class schedules were already so full.
Another problem was that of finding a sufficient number of
patients in order to provide adequate experience for the
medical clerks. Part of the reason for the lack of a
sufficient number of patients was due to the fact that con-
sent for visiting patients had to be granted by the patient
himself/herself, by the family of the patient, and by the

institution.

57

Evaluation of the medical clerks was based on
their case write-ups, formulation of care and management
plans for the elderly, skill and sensitivity in communicat-
ing and interacting with the elderly patients, and time
spent with the elderly. The director/staff person evaluated
the medical clerks especially in their ability to correlate
class learning with field experience. A personal evalu-
ation was expected from each clerk with respect to the
nature and scope of material presented and the effective-
ness of methods employed and activities planned. The clerk
was asked to critique the geriatric clerkship program as
it relates to the rest of their medical education.

Suggestions for improving the medical clerkship
program were few because the director/staff person felt
that the program was too new to warrant changes, although
increase in duration and variety of experience was proposed.
The medical clerk suggested that the supervisor under whom
one did his clerkship know more about what could interest
him so that experiences could be planned to meet each indi-
vidual's needs.

The Elementary Internship Program was designed to
do three things: 1) to prepare persons for the future of
education; 2) to initiate a program that could be presented
to the Board of Education as a viable alternative to
current education; 3) and to create a better professional
image of the university with respect to its concern for

serving people.

58

The Elementary Internship Program was organized
to train teachers to become more capable of operating
independently and creatively. The program was aimed at
the integration of teaching theory with teaching experience.
Besides a general education in the liberal arts and a
special depth of understanding in the behavioral sciences,
the program.provided for one and one-half years of guided
classroom teaching experience. During their time of
teaching, daily evaluation was given the elementary intern
through intern-consultant conferences. In this way the
educational interns received immediate assistance and direc-
tion with respect to teaching methods and learned to cope
with problem areas.

Other program activities such as seminars, research,
monthly meetings with the staff, principals, and other in-
terns, served as additional experiences and provided further
feedback for the intern.

Parent-teacher expectations sometimes posed prob-
lems in relation to the educational internship program, as
did union intervention in some schools. Both parents and
union made it difficult, and at times made it impossible,
for a student to be placed within a particular school.

Another problem which the program directors experi-
enced was that of favoritism. Intern consultants worked
hard with bright, competent interns but avoided students

who were not so promising or who were having difficulty in

59

the classroom. Getting intern consultants to work equally
as hard with the bright, promising intern as with the
slow intern or intern with problems was a major difficulty.

One of the biggest problems facing the directors
and intern consultants was that of placement of student
interns after graduation. The job market being extremely
limited for prospective new teachers made it almost imposs-
ible for graduated students to secure teaching positions.
This reality made it difficult to attract students to the
internship program.

The Elementary Internship Program gave evidence of
clearly defined methods for evaluating both the elementary
interns and the internship program. Instruments used for
this purpose included evaluation forms, specified periodic
meetings for evaluation purposes between intern consultants
and intern students; meetings between principals of the
school where an intern taught and the intern and/or the in-
tern consultant; and evaluation by teachers with whom or
for whom interns are teaching. No changes were recommended
by persons in the Elementary Internship Program on the
basis that changes are continually taking place within the
program as the need for such becomes apparent.

In summary then, it can be said that the purpose of
the clerkship/internship programs in each of the three pro-
fessional centers of law, medicine and education respectiv-

ely, was directed toward meeting needs of an immediate

6O
practical nature. In addition, the urban law clinic
program was intended to act as a change agent in the area
of curriculum, and the educational program was designed
to provide an alternative choice to current education.

One of the primary needs of students in each of
the programs mentioned was that of bridging the gap be-
tween theory and practice. For this reason, the clerkship/
internship programs were designed to provide field
experience through which theory and practice could become
integrated. To ensure realization of the maximum potential
offered by these experiences, students were placed under
the supervision of professional experts. These professional
experts helped the clerks/interns understand and evaluate
their experiences in light of the theory learned, and taught
the clerks how to utilize effectively the skills they had
acquired.

Although each of the directors of the clerkship/
internship programs admitted of problems relative to the
programs, these problems did not appear to inhibit the
programs from operating effectively and efficiently. On
the whole, directors, staff persons, and program consult-
ants seemed to be satisfied with.all that the program was
providing by way of experience and training.

With respect to program evaluation, the directors

of all the programs indicated that some form of evaluation

61
is provided. The tools for evaluation in education seemed
to be the most specified of the three professional pro-
grams. The geriatric medical program was still too new
to have any sophisticated evaluation instruments developed
as yet. The evaluation tools used by the law clinic were
indefinite and subjective in nature.

The elements that emerged out of this study as
common to all three professional internship/clerkship
programs included the following:

1) Commitment to the program (a mutual arrangement

between individual and organization);

2) A specified period of time for persons to
remain in the program;

3) An organizing center;

4) A project relating to the participant's pro-
fessional identity;

5) A method of evaluation and continuous assessment
throughout the program based on program
objectives;

6) A one-to-one relationship with at least one
staff professional in the program (e.g. staff

attorney in legal aid clinic).

The Clerkship Program in the Home of Mercy
A Clerkship Program.has been in operation through

the Home of Mercy for the last two years. The two

62

persons directing the program, the four professional staff
Consultants and three Clerks were interviewed in order to
identify program elements and discover problems that may
serve to inhibit successful participation in the program.

The Home of Mercy Clerkship Program.differs from
the professional clerkship/internship programs. The Mercy
Clerkship Program began in response to persons who came to
the Religious Sisters of Mercy and asked specifically for
help in reference to professional and personal development.
In contrast to the three professional centers already
cited, the Mercy Clerkship Program was not designed as
pre-service or pre-certification training for the profes-
sions. Instead, the program was intended to provide
professional guidance in helping persons define their pro-
fessional goals and objectives, and clarify and specify
their strategies for carrying out the professional goals
and objectives as specified. When these goals and objec-
tives had been articulated, then the Sisters were able to
help direct persons in their choice of higher institutions
or places where their goals could be realized. Once per-
sons were into their professional development programs,
then the Sisters were able to challenge these persons to
fulfillment of their professional goals and were able to
lead them to integrate professional development with the
whole of their lives.

Another equally important side of the Home of Mercy

Clerkship Program had to do with providing opportunity for

63
the personal development individuals requested along with
professional development. Because of the uniqueness of
each Clerk participant, individualized programs for per-
sonal development were designed according to the needs
and desires of each person. Each program.was the result
of joint effort between a Sister Consultant and the Clerk
involved.

The interview data relating to the needs assess-
ment of the Home of Mercy Clerkship Program revealed that
the Clerks who have come to the Home of Mercy have shared a
common desire for a community way of life and more intense
participation in liturgical celebrations. A community way
of life and intense participation in liturgical celebration
have become integral to the Clerkship Programr There is
need for persons entering the Clerkship Program.in the
future to be motivated not only by a desire for personal and
professional development, but also by a strong desire for
incorporation into a community way of life.

Common needs were identified by persons in the
Clerkship Program, These needs included the following:
need for personal and professional stability; need for con-
tinuing professional education; need for professional
challenge; need for professional peer relationships; need
for complementary professional relationships with profes-
sionally expert persons; and a need for a place to work out
professional problems with others who are committed in the

same way to development.

64

The following common elements were indicated as
crucial to the Clerkship Program: an agreement contract
between the Clerk and the Sisters of Mercy for not less
than one year; a special professional project for the
Clerk to work on in relation to his/her particular expert-
ise; a system for consistent program evaluation which
includes professional assessment procedures, weekly
conferences between Clerk and Program Consultant.

As indicated by the common need and elements listed
above, professional development is seen not in isolation
but only as part of and in relationship to all the other
aspects of personal development. This concept of the
integration of personal and professional development is key
to the Mercy Clerkship Program as structured initially and
also to the proposed Mercy Clerkship Model presented later
in this paper.

The Home of Mercy has served as the matrix or
center for the Mercy Clerkship Program.aver the past two
years. This center acts as the hub from.which and to
which all activity flows. The Home of Mercy stands as the
stable point of reference for all Clerks in the Clerkship
Program. It is also the place where professional challenge
is given and the persons challenged are encouraged to
grow through the experience of carrying out the challenge

to completion.

65

The Mercy Clerkship Program affords the Clerks
the possibility of a strong community way of life with
common prayer, common meals, common work and recreation.
Through the program, Clerks learn to know one another
professionally and personally and form close friendships.
With help from one another, the Clerks are able to work
out their professional and personal problems, discover
the possibilities for complementary relationships with
each other, and meet with program directors on a weekly
basis.

In addition to identifying the program.eomponents
of the Mercy Clerkship Program, there were problems cited
by the persons interviewed. The problems help to point
out other areas of need for the program. Some of these
problems included the following:

1) Inadequate staffing;

2) Reticence to enter professional domain;

3) Avoidance of professional challenge;

4) Withdrawing from commitment to Clerkship;

5) Wanting to act in isolation;

6) Immaturity;

7) Inability to follow a planned program;

8) Unwillingness to submit to requirements for

personal and professional growth;

9) Failure to live up to the goals and objectives

one sets mutually with the directors.

66

The problems cited above are, for the most part,

a natural consequence of the growth experience. Even
while a person desires to grow and develop, there is the
natural resistance that arises when change threatens to
affect one's comfortable and familiar mode of existence.
It takes a great deal of inner strength and encouragement
to keep moving forward in the growth process because it
means leaving behind one way of being to enter a new level
of being. This is a painful process and most persons like
to avoid pain whenever possible. For this reason, the
community life of the clerks is so important because they
are able to help one another through the hard moments of
life and give necessary challenge if and when they see
each other backing away from the pain necessary for greater
growth in their lives.

With respect to the professional centers, it is
clear that each program began because of a need for persons
to be professionally trained in the specialized fields of
law, medicine and education. The urban law clinic also
aimed at serving the indigent and acting as a change agent
in the area of curriculum development. The medical center
trained the interns to work with the aged ill. The educa-
tional center purposefully aimed at developing a program
which can be accepted as an alternative mode of education
in today's contemporary world. Of the three centers pre-
sented, only the education center had a strong futuristic

orientation.

67

With regard to activities which were a consistent
part of the clerkship/internship program, each profession-
al center listed activities that related specifically to
their respective areas of expertise. The urban law center,
for example, included such things as preparing court cases.
The medical clerkship program included experience with the
elderly ill, visiting the aged in extended health care
units, and learning the use of problem oriented medical
records. Education included preparing teachers for full-
time teaching through classroom experience; and integrating
theory with practice.

Problems identified with respect to the clerkship/
internship programs included for the law school the con-
flict between class time and times scheduled for field
experience, and the fact that some clerks were placed with
attorneys who failed to provide learning experiences for the
clerks. Problems cited for the medical school included not
being able to find enough elderly persons for the number of
clerks in the program, and the need for patient, family,
and institutional consent before the clerks could work with
the elderly person. Frequently, the family and the patient
gave consent but the institution refused. Or, the institu-
tion gave consent and the patient or family did not. And
lastly, the education program faced the problem of the gap
that exists between theory and practice; and the problem of

getting staff consultants to work as hard with one person

68
as with another in the program.

Few changes in the clerkship/internship programs
were suggested. In.most cases, the directors and
professional staff persons felt that the programs had
been in existence for too short a time to make any major
adjustments in the program.

Each of the three clerkship programs had methods
for evaluating the clerks/interns in the program“ For
example, the law clinic had instruments for judging the
quality of court presentations and drafts for pleadings
to be corrected. The medical clerks were evaluated primarily
in time spent with the elderly. Education interns were
evaluated by classroom.performance and material preparation.

In assessing the needs of the Home of Mercy Clerk-
ship Program.which began two years ago, it was clear that
professional and personal development were integrally
related and that one area of development could not be spoken
of in isolation of the other. The areas of greatest concern
to the Administrators/Directors of the Home of Mercy Clerk-
ship Program, and of the Clerks, were the following commun-
ity, personal relationships, complementary professional
relationships, implementation of individual professional]
personal development programs, and methods of evaluation.

The Mercy Clerkship Program contrasted strongly
with the law, medicine and education clerkship programs
presented in this study. The professional centers concen-

trated solely on preparing persons for a particular

69

professional expertise, while the Mercy Clerkship Program
was concerned with both the professional and personal
development of persons. The professional centers trained
persons for expertise in professions. The Mercy Clerkship
Program per se did not train persons for a profession.
Rather the program provided a way forIJlerks to identify
their professional goals and objectives and then enter pro-
fessional centers for learning commensurate to their pro-
fessional capacity. The Mercy Clerkship Program.depended
upon the existence of highly professional centers to do
what it does not, i.e., train persons in professional skills.
Such professional centers stood as complement to the Mercy
Clerkship Program which had for its specific purpose the

professional and personal development of the total person.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS, CONCLUSIONS

Included in Chapter V are the following: 1) The
presentation of a Model Clerkship Program sponsored by
the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan; 2) pre-

sentation of summary, recommendations, and conclusions.

The Model Mercy Clerkship Program

Results of the survey of clerkship programs in the
three professional centers of law, medicine, and education,
and the needs assessment of the Home of Mercy form in part
the basis for the Model Mercy Clerkship Program presented
in this paper. The purpose of the proposed program is to
prepare persons to meet professionally the intensities of
today's professional world and to establish their identity
within society in order to serve society. The program
objective is to bring persons to the point of being able to
integrate fully their professional development with the
whole of their lives. The program, then, is fundamentally
educational in character. The program design is heavily
influenced by the learning theories of Piaget, Dewey, and
Rogers who stress self-activity and the value of experience
in learning, the need for evaluation, and maximum develOp-

ment of the human potential.

70

71

The Religious Sisters of Mercy are the sponsors
for the proposed Medel Clerkship Program for personal and
professional development. The Clerkship Program is called
"A Model Clerkship Program for Personal and Professional
Development." As designed, the model program.is in keep-
ing with the purpose and mission of the religious institute.
By tradition, the Religious Sisters of Mercy are a health
care community

which generously responds to the needs of personal
distress and collective misery through the

Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy. . . in its
mission of Catholic Comprehensive Health Care. .
As the members devote themselves to various aspects
of comprehensive alleviation, they also redeem

those areas of woundedness in service which manifest
within the body of contemporary society disorders
resulting in fragmentation and degradation rather
than wholeness.4

 

To better grasp the essence of the proposed clerk-
ship program, the researcher first presents the program
as a whole. Then the researcher presents each part of the
program with statements of purpose, gials and strategies.

The essential elements of the comprehensive clerk-
ship program of professional development include the
following:

1) A Contractual Agreement - Every Clerk will
commit himself/herself in writing to his/her
particular Clerkship Program.in relation to
his/her unique professional call. The
Religious Sisters of Mercy, as sponsors of

the Clerkship Program, will commit themselves by

2)

3)

4)

72

Profession and in writing to the fulfillment
of the specific terms of each Clerk's contract
or statement of commitment. The contract will
incorporate two essential elements of the
program:

a) The particular professional area to which

the Clerk chooses to commit himself/herself;
b) The length of time for this particular
Clerkship Program.

An Organizing Center - Every Clerk will formu-
late in writing the primary professional problem
or project of his/her Clerkship Program which
gives immediate purpose and direction to the
undertaking of specific objectives in order to
resolve the problem.stated and complete the pro-
ject designated.
Objectives - Every Clerk entering into the
professional formation program.af Clerkship will
be guided by specified objectives, the achieve-
ment of which are essential for fulfillment of
the contractual agreement.
Specified Assessment Procedures - Every Clerkship
Program will have vehicles, methods and tools
for mutually disclosing the Clerk's abilities,
progress, and attitudes. This disclosure will
constitute the primary source of assessment in-

formation which is descriptive of the personal

5)

6)

7)

73
growth of the Clerk and of the changes that
have taken place in him/her. Additions and
deletions from program objectives will be made
according to this assessment which will take
place on a regular basis for every Clerk.
Evaluation Protocols - Each Clerkship Program
will have particular instruments with which to
collect information about the program outcomes
and measure validly the success or failure of
program objectives. Evaluation will include
other techniques of measurement as these are
needed to cover all important possible events,
objectives, situational observations of
psychosocial skills and attitudes.
Professional and Spiritual Seminars - The Clerk
will participate in, and on occasion take
responsibility for seminars as opportunities
for growth in all the areas of human development
(physical, psychological, spiritual, communal
and professional dimensions).
Professional Experts and Personal Advisers -
The Clerks will be in dynamic relationships with
professional experts and personal advisors who
are directing the Clerkship Program. The dynamics
of the interpersonal relationships are key

elements in determining the richness, depth and

74
breadth of the clerkship experience.
8) Professional Consultants - Professional experts
in collaborative working relationship with the
Religious Sisters of Mercy as program consult-
ants serve in relation to the professional
development of expertise of the Clerk. As the
Clerk gathers information and enters more fully
into the process of Clerkship, he/she will be
made more conscious of the relationship which
exists between individuals in the profession
to which he/she feels called and the impact of
these relationships upon himself and the Home
of Mercy.
9) Organized System of Record Keeping - Each Clerk
is expected to maintain a professional journal
and to organize a filing system in relation to
his/her profession. The particular style of
this record keeping is mutually determined in
relationship to his/her professional expert.
Each Clerk is also expected to maintain a personal
journal in relation to his/her personal need for the Clerk-
ship Program. The particular style of this aspect of
record keeping must be determined in mutual relationship
to his/her personal advisor.

The place designated as the center for the model

program.is the Home of Mercy in Alma, Michigan. This

75

center is intended to be the matrix for all activity and

the reference point of stability for each person entering

the Clerkship Program, Therefore, each person seeking

admittance to the Clerkship Program will be asked initially

to live at or near the Home of Mercy for a specified

period of time.

The goals formulated for the Home of Mercy flow

from.the Mercy Community's statement of purpose cited

earlier in this paper. The goals are as follows:

1)

2)

3)

To determine the particular manifestation of
distress and need of persons asking to relate
to the Home of Mercy;

To determine the particular work of mercy
needed to respond to that area of need and
distress disclosed by those persons seeking
relationship to the Home of Mercy;

To determine the professional area of service
demanding reordering and wholeness in the

person asking to relate to the Home of Mercy.

The Mercy Clerkship Program goals are directly

related to the goals of the Home of Mercy as these are

related to the mission of that Center.

1)

To maximize the professional performance and
personal satisfaction of each clerk through the
development of the individual's motivation,

skills and capacities;

76

2) To assist the Clerk in becoming a dynamic
agent of change in and a catalyst for
assumption of responsibility within his/her
professional domain;

3) To provide the assistance and expertise of
professional experts in the areas of education
and health-related professions, Christian
living and service, and human development,
especially as related to the needs of each Clerk;

4) To provide resources (professional-technical,
spiritual, facilities and services) for the
professional and personal development of the Clerk;

5) To promote inter- and intra-institutional coop-
eration and sharing of resources for educational
and professional development for Clerks
sponsored by the Home of Mercy.

Implementation of the following objectives are
intended as the means of activating the goals of the Clerk-
ship Program.

1) To provide each Clerk with the consistent
assistance of professional experts through
stabilized relationships;

2) To provide orientation into professional]
personal growth through a program of Clerkship
which provides a widely varied format of
study and work experiences in order to achieve

that goal;

77

3) To assist each Clerk in developing a more

4)

5)

precise understanding of and responsibility

for each of the aspects of his/her profession;
To provide specific challenge for each Clerk

to assume greater personal responsibility for
actual movement into further professional and
personal development.

To assist each Clerk in initiating and main-
taining an organized system of record keeping,
both personal and professional as both converge

to make the Clerk an integrated professional.

The following strategies are designed for imple-

mentation of the program objectives. The strategies incorp-

orage the essential elements of the Clerkship Program;

1)

2)

3)

The candidates for Clerkship will be offered
the key element of stability in the program
through relationship with the professional and
personal Consultants directing the program.
Clerkship candidates will be given an orienta-
tion program which will clarify the role of the
Home of Mercy as sponsoring organization for
the Clerkship Program, as well as outline the
goals and objectives of the program.itself in
general terms.

The Clerk will be asked to prepare a statement
or proposal which expresses the primary pro-

fessional problem or project for his/her Clerkship

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

78
Program. Based upon this statement, the Clerk
and the professional experts together will then
design program.objectives for his/her
particular program.
With the assistance of the professional experts,
the Clerk will develop an organized system of
professional record keeping.
Through consultation with the professional
expert, the Clerk will take formal steps to in-
itiate and develop a program of further profes-
sional studies.
In consultation with the professional expert,
the Clerk will establish clear, formal, and working
professional relationships with consultants at
Michigan State University, the University of
Michigan and other educational centers of research
and study.
Clerks will participate in and be responsible for
seminars relating to their particular profession.
Through consultation with a personal advisor the
Clerk will study his/her relationship to the
Church and determine his/her capacity for service
to society through the particular profession
undertaken.
The Clerks will participate in the study of Scrip-
ture and other social sciences related to human

growth and development.

79

Assessment is an integral component of the Mercy
Clerkship Program. Assessment as evaluation is defined
as the process of determining with the clerk his/her pro-
gress in the Clerkship Program. It is an on-going
process. Every Clerkship Program will have vehicles and
methods for disclosing the Clerk's abilities, progress, and
attitudes. Particular attention will be given to how these
abilities and attitudes change from.one point of evaluation
to another. Additions and deletions from.program objectives
will be greatly affected by this process which is intended
to take place on a regular basis for every Clerk. The
following are tools for such assessment:

1) Clerk participation in regular, scheduled
meetings for personal and professional growth
and seminars with professional experts and with
other Clerks;

2) On-going observation by the professionals of
the Clerk's responses to practical invitations
for service to others;

3) Regular Clerk input into the program develop-
ment cycle;

4) Appraisal of the Clerk's actual performance
against specific goals and objectives through
sharing of his/her professional and personal
record system;

5) Observable consistency with which the Clerk is

professionally attired in apprOpriate situations;

8O

6) The quality of dynamic relationship with
other Clerks;

7) The assessment of the attitude of the Clerk
in regard to coping with problems the Clerk
faces in the implementation of the Clerkship
Program.

The evaluation process is one of the experiences
in the total program.expected to increase the professional
development of the Clerk. Evaluation is intended to be a
shared responsibility between the Clerk and the professional
experts. The process of evaluation includes the following:

1) Assisting the Clerk in determining his/her own

goals based on competency assessment by persons
professionally qualified in his area of interest;

2) Examining his/her own experiences and seeking

evaluation from.others;

3) Evaluating performance and progress in relation

to the Clerk's total development;

4) Evaluating the undertaking of appropriate

additional experiences;

5) Developing self-direction which provides for

maximum individual growth;

6) Evaluating the integration of theoretical,

conceptual learning with performance.

Program evaluation, as an essential element in the

Clerkship Program, must have valid instruments which can

81
be used by the Clerk or program consultant to collect in-
formation about a Clerk's program. Valid measures of
program objectives are of prime concern to the researcher.
At this time the following tools are to be used:
1) Fulfillment of contract terms;
2) Demonstration by the Clerk indicating increased
satisfaction with professional responsibilities;
3) Actualization of program.objectives by each Clerk;
a. Attainment of educational/professional degrees;
b. Progress of Clerk's pr0posed program project;
c. Increased capacity and demonstrable initiative
in giving professional service to persons
needing it;

d. Increased capacity and demonstrable initiative
in being of service to the Church.

4) Formulation of a proposed plan for continuation
of professional collaborative relationship with
the Religious Sisters of Mercy following the
completion of a Clerkship Program.

Program resources are essential to implementation

of the Clerkship Program. The following list is an outline
of the resources available for implementation of the model
program:

1) The Clerks;

2) The professional Religious Sisters of Mercy;

3) The Home of Mercy as co-ordinating center for
programs of human, educational, and professional

development;

82

4) Professional and educational consultants
’and researchers from universities and other
centers of research and study;

5) The developing professional library of the

Clerks.

Resources available in the Home of Mercy are in the
following areas of professional services: administration,
body systems analysis, medicine, biochemistry, body theology,
family services, social work, economic services, musicology,
nutrition, soil ecology, speech, hearing and language
therapy, maternal-infant specialist care, home nursing,
senility specialist care, oral health care, and child
education.

The principle of learning through participation is
proposed by the educational theories of Piaget, Dewey and
Rogers. It is the principle upon which the Medel Mercy
Clerkship Program is built.

In order to assure the growth possibility of each
experience, special attention is given to helping the(:lerk
integrate each activity into the large pattern of his life.
This is in keeping with Piaget who stresses the idea that a
child learns by forming within his mind a continually ex-
tending structure of reality which corresponds to the out-
side world. He must assimilate the meanings of these
experiences and accommodate his activities to the real world

outside himself.

83

Dewey said that all genuine education comes through
experience. Any experience which arrests or distorts
further growth is considered to be miseducative. Particular
attention was given to this principle in the construction
of the Mercy Clerkship Medel Program. Built into the
design is the check and balance system of record keeping by
the Clerk and consistent evaluation with the professional
and spiritual Consultants whose responsibility it is to be
sure that one experience builds upon another, and that no
experience abort the possibility for further growth.

Dewey also stressed that education can take place
only when a man is free. Freedom for Dewey meant freedom
to form right and purposeful ends which are followed through
to completion. Each Clerk is challenged to carry out to
completion the long and short-range goals he/she has set
for himself/herself. When a Clerk fails in this respect,
provision is made for the Clerk to face the situation
honestly and justify the situation by completing what he
had said he would.

Rogers defines freedom for man in terms of his be-
ing able to live freely in the process of growing and
developing his own potentiality with all the creative tension
this produces. Rogers stressed the need man has to choose
over and over again his direction in life especially as the
growth process takes him more and more deeply into the pain

of this process. The Mercy Clerkship Program is built upon

84
the principles of this pain-growth-process.

Rogers accents the need for consistent self-
evaluation--evaluation that comes from within the person
himself/herself and not from the outside. The Model
Clerkship Program has within it provision for self-
evaluation on a regular basis. Although the evaluation is
frequently done in relation to a professional or spiritual
Consultant, the evaluation is expected to come from within
the Clerk himself. There is recognition of the fact that
unless a person can claim the evaluation as his own and
move with it, he/she cannot proceed into the next step of
process.

The Mercy Clerkship Model Program is proposed as a
means to help persons integrate the professional and per-
sonal aspects of their lives. The principle of integration
is that man is a single unit and develops as a single unit.
Professional growth is only one aspect of his being and
must be integrated into his whole person. Professional
development, therefore, must not be looked at except within

the context of a man's total human development.

Summary, Recommendations, Conclusions

 

In the first chapter of this study the statement
was made that the traditional type clerkship program is no
longer able to meet the intensities of today's professional

world. The skill training provided by clerkship/internship

85
programs still remains an important factor in the pro-
fessional training of individual persons. The problem
that has arisen, however, is that skill training alone
does relatively little to prepare persons to perceive
problems, formulate hypotheses, or apply research-based
solutions to problem-situations. One of the most urgent
needs in the professional world today is for persons who
have the capacity for thought.

Another reason why the traditional type clerkship
program is no longer feasible rests in the fact that the
purpose of education has shifted away from the teaching of
skills as a primary end to a primary concern for developing
the maximum potential of individual persons. The new
emphasis in education places skill development within a
broader context where development of persons is the first
value and skill development serves this greater end.

Based on the theories of Piaget, Dewey, and Rogers
who define the purpose of education in terms of the maximum
development of the total human person, the researcher
proposed a design for a Model Clerkship Program which pro-
vides for maximum development of persons through integration
of the personal and professional aspects of their lives.

It is readily apparent from the history and develop-
ment of clerkship that it has long been a part of education-
al theory and practice. As clerkship existed in the Middle

Ages and evolved through the sixteenth and seventeenth

86
centuries, participants experienced something more than
simply being trained as a skilled worker. The whole of
a clerk's life was caught up into the fabric of a clerk-
ship way of life. As industrialism took over and the guild
system disappeared, however, so did the clerkship way of
life. The concept of clerkship was reduced to a singular
meaning of training persons in some professional skill.
The Mercy Clerkship Model Program is deliberately designed
to reintegrate the personal and professional aspects of a
Clerk's life.

Clerkship/internship programs operate on the prin-
ciple that a person learns through the experience of parti-
cipation. Thus it is that clerks/interns are placed within
a professional setting where field experiences are possible
under the supervision of professionals in the field.
Through observation-participation, the clerk grows to know
his strengths and weaknesses. By means of consistent evalu-
ation between the clerk and the professional, the clerk is
enabled to assess his needs and plan experiences which will
lead to professional expertise and personal development.

The three professional centers selected for study
in this paper included an urban law clinic, a geriatric
medical program, and an elementary intern program. Each
center had an active clerkship/internship program. The
Director/Professional Staff Person, and a Clerk from each

center were interviewed.

87

The results of the interviews indicated that each
professional center had clearly defined goals, program
objectives and strategies for implementing programs. The
goals of each program were oriented to meet present needs.
The law clinic goal included the idea that the law program
could serve as a change agent for school curriculum. The
education program was set up to act as a change agent in so
far as its design could serve as a model for an alternative
to current education.

Each of the professional centers had clearly out-
lined activities which the directors and the program parti-
cipants referred to as a consistent part of the program.
Problems relative to the programs were few, and methods for
evaluation were an integral part of the program in each of
the three centers.

It is significant to note that none of the profes—
sional centers had programs that included elements specific-
ally concerned with the personal development of persons.
The programs were highly professional in tone and aimed
solely at the clerk's professional development.

In contrast to the three professional centers con-
cerned only with the professional development of persons,
the Home of Mercy Clerkship Program.made provision for help-
ing persons achieve both professional and personal develop-
ment. One of the reasons for this difference between the
professional centers and the Home of Mercy is because the

Mercy Community views professional development as integrally

88

bound up with personal development. Part of man's frus-
tration in the professional world stems from the fact
that this professional side of his life has always been
separate from the other aspects of his life. One of the
specific purposes of the Mercy Clerkship Program is that
of healing this fragmentation in man by increasing the
Clerk's awareness of himself/herself as a unified whole,
an integrated person. This integration is extremely
important if one is to fulfill himself and be of service to
society. Personal disintegration threatens not only to
destroy man himself but threatens to destroy the very world in
which we live. Carl Rogers sums this up by saying:

We are working hard to release the incredible

energy in the atom.and nucleus of the atom. If

we do not devote equal energy. . . to the release

of the potential of the individual person, then

the enormous discrepancy between our level of

physical energy resources and human energy

resources will doom.us to a deserved and

universal destruction.44

In order to maintain a strong Mercy center for the

Clerkship Program, it has become obvious that stability and
continuity of personnel are necessary for the Mercy center.
For this reason, the Religious Sisters of Mercy assumed
total responsibility for the Home of Mercy center and for
the Administration]Directorship of the Mercy Clerkship
Program. Only those sisters who are under perpetual vow
and who have made a life commitment to the Mercy center are

considered for the positions of professional or Spiritual

Consultants to the Clerks.

89

Necessary changes and growth are essential for
the development of a clerkship program. Periodic evalu-
ation of purpose, goals, and program strategies was built
into the Mercy Clerkship Program.structure as a critical
component. However, no methods for this evaluation have
been determined as yet. The researcher recognizes that
developing such methods and technical tools requires
intensive study and professional skill. In conclusion,
therefore, the researcher recommends that such a study be
undertaken and an evaluation method developed as a work
in complement with this thesis which presents a clerkship

model for personal and professional development.

FOOTNOTES

1John Dewey, School and Society, (Chicago, Illinois:
The University of ChicagoTPress, I943), p. 69.

2Carl R. Rogers, Freedom to Learn, (Columbus, Ohio:
Charles Merrill Publishing Co., 1969), p. 105.

3Charles G. Crump and E.F. Jacob, The Le ac of the
Middle Ages, (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, Iggbi, p.I6.

4J. Wickham Legg, (editor). The Clerk's Book of
1549, (London, England: Philadelphia‘Divinity School,
), p. xix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5Charles G. Crump and E.F. Jacob, gpy_gig., pp. lix-lx.
6J. Wickham.Legg, (editor), 122. 235., pp. xxvii-xxxv.
7Ibid., p. lxii.
8Charles G. Crump and E.F. Jacob, 92. 335., p. 255.
9Ibid.

loghid., p. 256.

11Ibid.

12

William F. Patterson and Michael H. Hedges,
Education for Industry, (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1946), p.8.

13Stephen Hencley, The Internship in Administrative
Preparation, (Columbus, Ohio: THeTUniversityTCOunciI for
EducationaI Administration, 1963), p.7.

14Charles D. Orth, Harvard University School of
Business Administration. Learnings frOm the Prggram in
Business Internship: 'An Interim Report, (Chlumbus, Ohio:
The University Council for Educational Administration, 1963),
pp. 1-5.

 

 

 

90

91

15Bernard C. Hennessey, Penn. State Studies:
Political Internships: Theory, Practice, Evaluation 128,
(University Park, Pennsylvania: The—Pennsylvania State
University Administrative Committee on Research, 1970),
p. 103.

16Ibid.

171bid.

18Ibid., p. 106.

191bid.

 

20Ibid.

21Boyd McCandless and Ellis D. Evans, Children and
Youth: Psychosocial Development, (Illinois: The Dryden
Press, 1973), pp. 64-71.

22Nathan Isaacs, A Brief Introduction to Piaget,
(New York: Schocken Books, 1974), p. 67.

23Ibid., p. 18.

24Ibid., pp. 18-20.

25Cyril P. Svoboda, "Sources and Characteristics of
Piaget's Stage Concept of Development: A Historical Pers-
pective", JOurnal of Education, 155, (April, 1973), pp. 36-37.

 

26Nathan Isaacs, gp. cit., p. 20.
271bid., p. 67.
28

John Dewey, Experience and Education, (New York:
The MacMillan Co., 1952), p. 12.

29John Dewey, School and Society, (Chicago, Illinois:
The University of Chicago Press, 1943)} p. 149.

 

30Ibid.

 

92

31John Dewey, Dictionary of Education, (New York:
Philosophical Library, 1959), p. 39.

32John Dewey, Experience and Education, (New York:
The MacMillan Co., 1952), p. 27.

33

 

 

Ibid.

 

34John Dewey,Democracy and Education, (New York: The
Free Press, 1966), p. 5.

35John Dewey, School and Society, (Chicago: The
University of ChicagoTPress, 1943), pp. 39-40.

36John Dewey, Experience and Education, (New York:
The MacMillan Co., 1952), p. 140.

37

 

 

 

Ibid., pp. 73-74.

38Ibid.

 

39Carl R. Rogers, op. cit., p. 5.

401bid., pp. 157-15.

41Ibid., pp. 273-274.

42Ibid., pp. 249-250.

43The Religious Sisters of Mercy, Spiritual Document,
(Alma, Michigan, 1977).

44

 

Carl R. Rogers, op. cit., p. 125.

APPENDIX

COVER LETTER AND INSTRUCTIONS
TO PILOT STUDY PARTICIPANTS

93

Dear:

The enclosed questionnaire is part of the proposal for my
Masters thesis the purpose of which is, in part, to describe
the state of the art of professional development programs
called Clerkships, Internships or Apprenticeships. One of the
goals of the study is to obtain accurate and comprehensive
data about these professional programs which provide a sound
basis for the develOpment of an effective program model of
Clerkship which can be implemented in comprehensive health
care centers to meet the needs of applicants in the area of
health and related disciplines.

Because of your experience in professional development programs,
I would value your response. In addition, your institution's
past and potential interest and involvement in academic and
professional clerkships or apprenticeships prompts me to urge
your full cooperation in responding to the survey questions.

The questionnaire has a three-fold purpose:

1. To obtain information relative to important elements of
a clerkship program.

2. To acquire data relative to programs that have terminated.

3. To obtain information that will be useful in developing
and implementing a generalized model of a clerkship
program.

The information obtained from the survey will be used in the
formulation of a generalized clerkship model. A first draft
of the study must be completed by the first week in September.
For this reason I am requesting that you complete and return
the questionnaire to me by August 20, 1977.

It is anticipated that the response to the survey will be com-
pleted by Program Directors or the person(s) most familiar with
the general and on-going operations of your organization. It is
also anticipated that person(s) other than the Director may be
appointed by the Director to carry out the completion of the
survey.

If you have any questions regarding the questionnaire, please
contact Sister Mary Synchia Leary, R.S.M. at the Office of
Admissions and Scholarships, Michigan State University

(517) 353-8332 (Ext. 250).

Your commitment of time and resources in assisting me in the
development of a clerkship program.model is genuinely appreciated.

Sincerely,
Sister Mary Cynthia Leary, R.S.M.

Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum
Michigan State University

94

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

This questionnaire is designed to acquire information
pertinent to each of the three objectives indicated for the
survey: (1) Elements Common to Programs of Professional
Development (Internships and Clerkships), (2) Terminated
Programs of Professional Development, and (3) Data related
to Program Models.

If any questions or items are not applicable, please indi-
cate by writing NA. Upon completion of all sections of the
questionnaire, please return all materials using the
enclosed envelope provided.

In responding to the questionnaire, please refer to the
following definitions:

1. Goal: The overall purpose or end which the program.is
designed to accomplish.
Example: To acquire a working knowledge of the
principal methods of charting data
pertinent to disease symptoms.

2. Objective: Statements which describe and communicate

a specific intended outcome.

Example: The Clerk will master with 100
percent accuracy the POMR method
of charting (the Problem
Oriented Medical Record).

3. Clerkship: A program.of professional development in
which a person who is pursuing initial or
continuing development in one or more dis-
ciplines may obtain field or clinical ex-
perience through integrated academic study
and guided professional activities.

4. Internship: A program of profession development in
which students give service in preparation
for independent practice in a profession.
Examples: Educational Administration

Internship

Harvard School of Business
Internship

Internship in Counselor Education

5. Content: The amount of specified material or matter
dealt with to be studied; essential concepts
and principles of that portion of the discip-
line under consideration.

6. Population Need: What is the nature of the problem need-
ing a particular professional service?

8/4/77

APPENDIX B

PILOT STUDY QUESTIONNAIRE

4‘me

95

CLERKSHIP OR INTERNSHIP PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Name of organization:

 

Name of respondent:

 

Position of respondent:

 

Please place a check in the blank before the numbers
which most closely represent the population of the
town or city in which your program is operationalized:

1,000 to 2,500

2,500 to 5,000

5,000 to 10,000

10,000 to 50,000

50,000 to 150,000

over 150,000

 

Participants in the program are/were predominantly (check
one):

local residents
not local residents
Please indicate the current operating phase of the program:
( ) planning phase
( ) operational phase (implementing activities)
( ) no longer in operation, program terminated
Explain briefly how your organization/institution or
agency became responsible for the program.of professional
development you describe. Place a check beside each
appropriate need:
needs of individuals

needs of a college or university

needs of a professional organization other than
college or university

96

needs of industry
perceived needs by your organization

other (please specify):

 

 

 

 

8. Statement of Purpose:

Briefly summarize the goals or main purpose of your
internship or clerkship program:

 

 

 

 

9. Please check the length of time most closely related to
the duration of the program you describe:

A. Less than one month

 

B. Less than two months

 

C. Six months

D. One year

 

E. Two years

 

F. Other (please specify):

 

 

10. Eligibility Requirements (age, sex, professional prepara-
tion, etc.):

 

 

 

 

11.

12.

l3.

14.

15.

97

Outline briefly the principal concepts that characterize
your program:

 

 

 

 

Please list specific activities which are a consistent
part of the program. Examples: seminars, clinical
rounds, administrative surveys, research.

A.

 

B.

 

C.

 

D.

 

To what extent can the student trainee define the con-
tent of the clerkship?

most of the time
half of the time
less than half of the time

never

 

Please list the title, professional preparation and
number of persons who staffed the program:

 

 

 

Please give the usual number of students per professional
trainer:

 

Prograngvaluation ProCedures:

 

A. Does your program.have a formal designed plan to
measure effectiveness? ( ) Yes ( ) No

98

B. If you do have a specified plan of evaluation,
please list the criteria or standards used to assess
program accomplishments:

 

 

 

 

C. What are the specific techniques or methods
employed in operationalizing your evaluation plan?

 

 

 

 

D. If possible, please summarize the primary program
accomplishments:

 

 

 

 

l6. Termination of Program:

 

A. If applicable to your program, please state reason(s)
for the termination of the program:

 

 

 

B. Please state the duration of length of time of the
program:

less than 6 months
one year

Other (please Specify):

 

17.

18.

99

State your personal objectives for participation in
the program as they relate to your goals for partici-
pation in the program:

A.

 

B.

 

C.

 

D.

 

If given an opportunity, what changes would you
recommend in the clerkship (internship) program in
which you are participating or have participated?

 

 

 

 

8/4/77

APPENDIX C

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
FOR THE THREE PROFESSIONAL CENTERS

lOO

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

 

How would you describe the needs your organization
tried to meet in starting this program?

Have the needs you have identified remained the same?

How would you describe the purpose Of your program?

How long has the program been in Operation?

Please describe some of the Objectives of the program.

lOl

Interview:page 2

 

10.

What are some specific activities that are a consistent
part Of the program? (examples might be: seminars,
research,clinica1 work, moot court)

 

How frequently do these activities take place?

How much time does one spend in participation in the
program?

Please describe the background and preparation of
professionals who work with the participants in the
program.

What is the ratio of students to the professional staff
persons?

102

Interview: page 3

 

11. How would you describe some Of the problems you
experience in relation to the program.

12. What changes would you like to make in the Program?

13. Does your Program have a definite method of evaluating
its effectiveness for the participants? (If yes,
would you describe the methods)

 

APPENDIX D

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT

103

NEEDS ASSESSMENT
FOR
CLERKSHIP PROGRAMS SPONSORED BY THE HOME OF MERCY

Interview Questions:

 

Part I:

1. How would you describe the background of persons who
have already come or are seeking admission to Clerk—
ship?

2. How would you describe the interests of these same
persons before coming to Clerkship and since?

 

104

Needs Assessment 2

3. Having had some persons come to the Home Of Mercy for

Clerkship, what would you see as elements of Clerkship
common to all persons who have come.

4. In addition to professional develOpment, what else
does a Clerk need?

5. What kind of staffing is needed to meet their needs?

105

Needs Assessment 3

 

6.

What other resources are available to meet Clerk needs?

 

What are your thoughts and recommendations about the
personal housing Of Clerks?

 

What suggestions would you make about fees for pro-
fessional and personal guidance and direction for the
Clerk?

How would you evaluate the effectiveness or success
Of the Clerkship fOr the participant?

 

106
Needs Assessment 4

 

10. What are the Objectives of Joseph John's Clerkship?
Are they clear? Are they Operative?

 

11. What are some of the problems that interfere with the
successfulness with.whiCHia person participates in
Clerkship?

 

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