Early Warning Signs: What Faculty Often Miss Until It’s Too Late

By the end of this module, faculty will be able to:

Identify early warning signs that a placement environment may be psychologically unsafe
Recognize red flags in site supervision that warrant closer monitoring

Faculty rarely hear, "I'm being bullied."

What Early Warning Signals Often Sound Like

Instead, faculty may hear:

“ I'm probably just overthinking it. Red flag

“ They're just really particular about things. Red flag

“ I'm trying not to ask too many questions. Red flag

“ I just need to work harder. Red flag

“ I don't want this to affect my evaluation. Red flag

“ It's probably normal. Red flag

More often, early warning signs show up quietly through changes in communication, engagement, or behavior.

Bullying research often focuses on “negative acts,” meaning repeated behaviors such as persistent criticism, social exclusion, excessive monitoring, or humiliation that accumulate over time (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2020).

In fact, this same researcher, Einarsen and colleagues, is the researcher who created the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) which is used in many (including our own) research to dedicate Bullying and Incivility in the workplace. You can see that assessment below

View Assessment

In immersive learning environments, students may hesitate to raise concerns directly because of fear of retaliation, evaluation consequences, or being labeled as “not resilient.”

When these signals are missed or minimized, issues that could have been addressed early often escalate into more serious problems.

Recognizing early warning signs allows faculty to intervene supportively, before psychological safety is compromised and before learning begins to suffer.