This study examined the effect that supervision with a direct multicultural focus had on supervisees (participants). Specifically, the study focused on how supervision affected supervisees' perceptions of supervisors' multicultural competence and supervisees' development of multicultural skills. Supervisees' development of multiculturally competent skills was measured by the client's perception of supervisees' multicultural competence, supervisees' case conceptualization ability and supervisees' behavior in therapy sessions. To measure the supervisee's behavior in therapy, coders counted the number of statements made and questions asked by the supervisee relative to cultural factors. This experimental study is a one factor with two levels, within-subjects design. Fifteen doctoral students were recruited to be supervisees (participants). The supervisees were divided into four supervision groups that met on a weekly basis.

The supervisees conducted three therapy sessions with 30 undergraduate volunteers divided into a control and an experimental condition. Seven advanced doctoral students volunteered to serve as student supervisors. Each supervisor participated in both the control and experimental condition. In the control condition, supervisors provided supervision as they normally would and participants conducted three therapy sessions with their clients. After this condition was completed, the student supervisors were provided with training on multicultural supervision. In the experimental condition, supervisors were instructed to initiate a conversation on multicultural counseling and ask three questions that directly focused on cultural factors in case conceptualization. All supervision sessions and therapy sessions were videotaped.

Trained doctoral student coders observed the therapy sessions and recorded the frequency of participants making statements and/or asking questions pertaining to culture. Participants were asked to fill out a form evaluating their supervisor's multicultural competence and asked to complete a case conceptualization at the end of the third session in each condition. Trained undergraduate raters reviewed participants' case conceptualizations. Clients were asked to complete a form to evaluate the supervisees' multicultural competence.

Results showed that: 1) supervisors were perceived to be more culturally aware when there was a direct multicultural focus compared to when there was not a direct multicultural focus in supervision, and 2) there were no significant differences in participants' case conceptualization ability, clients' perceptions of participants' multicultural competence, participants' perception of supervisors' cultural sensitivity or skills, and the mean number of participants' behavior in sessions across the two conditions. Implications for research and training are discussed.