Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Competency-based education and evaluation (CBE) is a major movement within higher education. Because CBE requires the measurement of identified skills as the primary outcome of education, demonstrating core skills, knowledge, and values in social work practice is tantamount. As aging has become a key area of social work, the Hartford Foundation has developed the Geriatric Social Work Initiative to promote a well-prepared labor force to serve older adults with the primary goal of increasing the number skilled social workers through aging-rich field practicum sites, thus necessitating development of an instrument to measure students' aging-related competence. Methods: The Practicum Partnership Program GSWC Scale-II is a four domain, 40-item instrument developed using SAGE-SW and other foundation work to assess skills working with older adults and their families. Domains include: values and theoretical perspectives, assessment of individuals and family, intervention of individuals and family, and aging services, programs, and policies. Each domain comprises 10 items. Using a dataset of 257 social work graduate students who self-assessed skill at the beginning of the Hartford Practicum Partnership Program at 35 schools, we examined both validity and reliability. The participants were predominantly second year students, most of whom were female (90%) between the ages of 20 and 63 years (M = 31.6, SD = 10.59). The majority were Whites (76.7%) followed by African Americans (8.1%), Latino Americans (6.6%), Asian Americans (3.1%), and Native Americans (1.6%). We assessed convergent validity by calculating correlations of the GSWC Scale-II items with students' aging-related experiences and with the Knowledge of Aging for Social Work Quiz (KASW). The psychometric properties of the GSWC Scale II were also calculated. Results: We found significant correlations between the GSWC Scale-II and each type of aging-related experience: r(255) = .16, p < .05 for length of volunteering, r(257) = .414, p < .001 for length of employment, r(255) = -.21, p < .001 for contact with older non-family members, r(255) = -.19, p < .01 for contact with older family members, and r(255) = .18, p < .01 for number of previously taken aging courses. Correlation with the overall score of the KASW was also significant, r(257) = .351, p < .001. The internal reliability estimates for each domain of the GSWC Scale were very high: Cronbach's alpha (α) = .91 for the value and theoretical perspectives, .94 for assessment of individuals and family, .91 for intervention for individuals and family, and .92 for aging services, programs, and policies; alpha for the complete scale = .97 Conclusions & Implications: Our analyses demonstrated both convergent validity and strong internal reliability of the GSWC Scale-II, suggesting its utility in the measurement of geriatric social work education outcomes. Because the instrument will be used to evaluate change in competence level for students upon completing the Practicum Partnership Program, future investigations using the post-program data to inform test-retest reliability may further enhance the competency-based education and evaluation approach to social work education.