Reaction of Participants
Quality is measured at two stages: after every theme eg sand play, puppets, neuroscience, and at the end of each course. All of the more detailed data is entered in our quality management system for analysis. The amount of data from themes is very large (3423 forms, each with up to 10 data items).
Overall Satisfaction – How satisfied were the participants?
A crucial question is the overall satisfaction of the course.
Rating | N | % |
1 (20%) | 1 | 0.37% |
2 (40%) | 1 | 0.37% |
3 (60%) | 8 | 2.93% |
4 (80%) | 92 | 33.70% |
5 (100%) | 171 | 62.64% |
| | 100.00% |
Average | 91.6% | |
The overall average of 91.6% is the highest that has ever been achieved and is above our target of 90%
Satisfaction by Course
Overall figures can conceal problems with individual courses. The more courses that are run the more likely it is that this will happen. APAC is certainly not perfect, so we show below the figures by course type for this year - and yes - we had a ‘Doomsday’ Certificate course, which was the first one delivered following a change of content after revalidation by the University and also where we had to change the Course Director mid-course, yet overall this still received a reasonably good rating by the participants (77.8%).
Average rating % | Highest Course Rating % | Lowest Course Rating % |
|
|
91.8 | 97.6 | 77.8 |
92.4 | 98.2 | 78.6 |
Course Content
‘What did you find most challenging?’
The courses are intensive, require a post graduate level of study and are challenging. The responses to this question give a good indication of the areas that you will need to be aware of. We have introduced some new categories this year so that it is not always possible to make year on year comparisons.
| This Year | 2008/9 | 2007/8 | 2006/7 |
Topic | % | % | % | % |
Personal process issues arising from the experiential exercises | 30.57% | 31.70% | 31.07% | 25% |
Presenting to a group | 12.08% | 7.14% | | |
Time management | 11.70% | 14.73% | 2.82% | 6% |
Course work - reading | 8.68% | | | |
Theory | 7.17% | 4.91% | 1.13% | 6% |
Sandplay experiential work | 4.15% | 7.14% | 9.60% | 13% |
Writing cases, essays etc | 4.15% | 4.91% | 6.21% | 2% |
Personal/Family issues/Motivation | 3.77% | 0% | 12.43% | 6% |
Administration/Documentation/Organisation | 1.13% | 0.89% | 7.34% | 10% |
88% of the challenges the participants face may be grouped into four categories:
Personal processing and confidence issues | 43% |
External factors such as time management | 16% |
Theory and Course Content | 16% |
Challenges in dealing with specific therapeutic media | 13% |
| 88% |
The challenges presented by process issues, and in dealing with specific creative arts media, 56% (55% last year) confirm that the experiential aspects of the course are working as intended. The proportion of process issues seemed to have stabilised. No one therapeutic medium presents a significant level of difficulty.
Of the factors external to the delivery of the course, time management is the most important – having to juggle work, family life and course requirements.
Subject Ratings
Neuroscience theory and research methods were introduced in both the Certificate and Diploma last year. This year we have made some minor modifications to the way in which these subjects are facilitated, mainly using PowerPoint.
The next table uses the 1 – 5 rating method, rather than percentages to show the level of consistency of subject ratings by participants. You can also see the year by year improvement in most subjects.

The overall average of 4.56 (91.2%) is considered to be very satisfactory.
Participant Evaluations of Subjects after each theme
Subject | Average Score % | Taught on |
Embodiment, Projection & Role | 97.60 | PG Diploma |
Court work | 96.60 | PG Diploma |
Masks | 96.60 | PG Diploma |
Clay | 95.20 | PG Certificate |
Movement | 93.80 | PG Certificate |
Play Therapy Dimensions Model | 93.80 | PG Diploma |
Art/Drawing | 92.80 | Both Certificate & Diploma |
Sand | 92.80 | Both Certificate & Diploma |
Practice Management | 92.40 | Both Certificate & Diploma |
An Introduction to Play Therapy | 91.40 | PG Certificate |
Music | 90.60 | PG Certificate |
Therapeutic Story | 90.00 | PG Certificate |
Attachment | 89.40 | PG Certificate |
Puppets | 89.00 | PG Certificate |
Child Development | 88.60 | PG Certificate |
Ethics | 87.20 | PG Certificate |
Other | 84.60 | |
Total | 91.20 | |
This illustrates the range of subjects taught and the high level of satisfaction with each.
Learning Methods
This table is based on 1588 participant evaluations for this year.
Method | This Year % | 2008/9 % | 2007/8 % | 2006/7 % |
Practical / Experiential Exercises | 98 | 96 | 94 | 88 |
Clinical Supervision | 86 | 86 | 82 | 80 |
Facilitation eg formal presentations | 84 | 86 | 84 | 76 |
Case Studies | 84 | 84 | 82 | 74 |
Reading List | 82 | 76 | 76 | 72 |
Teaching of Theory | 80 | 82 | 76 | 76 |
Videos | 72 | 74 | 62 | 60 |
Overall Average | 84 | 84 | 80 | 75 |
The data show the improvement over the years and the popularity of the experiential learning methods which not only enable participants to understand the therapeutic processes that the children will experience but also how to apply what is taught to practice in the play room in a practical way.

All methods have received a similar rating to last year, except the reading list, which has improved to a satisfactory level. As expected with a practice based course based on experiential learning and as with previous data, the practical and experiential methods score very highly.
Relevance of course content
Participants are also asked about the relevance of the block/theme content to their work and experience. Out of 1639 responses only 11 (0.67%) produced a negative comment.
The Tutors
The next table is based on 3178 evaluations of the Course Directors and Tutors by the participants.
Staff No | This Year % | 2008/9 % | 2007/8 % |
11 | 99.0 | 96.8 | 96.2 |
45 | 97.0 | | |
31 | 96.4 | 95.4 | 97.4 |
35 | 95.8 | 94.0 | |
48 | 95.8 | | |
29 | 94.2 | 90.0 | 90.6 |
5 | 92.2 | 91.4 | 88.8 |
37 | 91.8 | 97.2 | |
20 | 91.2 | 95.6 | 89.4 |
36 | 89.2 | 93.8 | |
28 | 89.2 | 94.2 | 94.4 |
| 93.4 | 94.2 | 93.4 |
The overall quality of the faculty has again been rated very highly by the participants. Year on year the overall average has dropped very slightly, from last year, to the 2007/8 level. The performance is consistent across the board. The newer members of the faculty have very satisfactory ratings, partly due to the thoroughness of their training as trainers.
It must however be remembered that a high rating in terms of participant acceptability does not necessarily correlate with teaching/learning effectiveness.
Support of the Participants by the Teaching Staff
This is the first year that we have included a question, concerning the availability of par support for the participants.
Rating | N | % |
2 (40%) | 4 | 0.22% |
3 (60%) | 67 | 3.63% |
4 (80%) | 467 | 25.30% |
5 (100%) | 1308 | 70.86% |
| 1846 | 100.00% |
The overall average of 4.67 (93.4%) is very high.
This is also the first year that we have included a question, concerning the quality of constructive feedback from the teaching staff to the participants about their work
Rating | N | % |
2 (40%) | 3 | 0.17% |
3 (60%) | 49 | 2.71% |
4 (80%) | 427 | 23.58% |
5 (100%) | 1332 | 73.55% |
| 1811 | |
The overall average of 4.71 (94.2%) is also very high.