Describing the Impact of Required Diversity Courses on Beginning Social Work Students' Development of Multicultural Competence

Background and Purpose:

This study contributes empirical evidence of the positive impact of required diversity courses on beginning social work students' learning. Few empirical studies evaluating the overall impact of diversity courses on students' beginning development of multicultural competency exist in the literature. What studies exist typically examine a particular course, program or teaching strategy. These studies do not made use of empirically validated instruments to assess the impact of these courses on student learning. The study's research questions were: 1) what was the impact of required diversity courses on beginning social work students developing multicultural competence? And 2) what factors are associated with changes in scores pre and post test.

Methods:

386 MSW students from 10 US social work programs participated in this study (60% participation rate). A purposive sampling strategy achieved a diverse study sample along these factors: private/public universities, universities where larger numbers of minority students enrolled, and geographic spread The Multicultural Awareness, Knowledge, Skills Survey, an empirically validated instrument, was used to examine the impact of the diversity courses. A retrospective pre and post test design involving a one time delivery of the survey instruments was used so that social desirable responding was reduced, sample attrition was minimized , and response shift bias controlled.

Results:

Paired t-tests examined overall differences at the beginning and end of the course. Multivariate analyses examined the differential impact of 3 student characteristics, race, age and prior exposure to diversity content.

Findings revealed that in all instances students significantly increased their knowledge (t =21.25, df =385, p<.05), awareness (t = 22.65, df= 385, p<.05), and perceived skill (t =21.07, df = 385, p<05.) Multivariate analyses indicated that these increases among the subscales depended upon particular student characteristics or experiences: in the Awareness subscale white students had higher scores; older students had higher scores in the Knowledge subscale. An interaction between age and prior exposure accounted for the greatest variance for the Skill subscale. In the Skills subscale younger students with prior exposure had higher scores than older students with prior exposure. However older students with no prior exposure to the content scored higher than younger students. Bonferroni post hoc comparisons confirmed statistically significant changes in student self- assessment though the effect size is small.

Conclusions and Implications:

This descriptive study contributes to the knowledge base by using an empirically validated instrument that examined the overall impact of a required course. Additionally it examined students from ten programs rather than a single class or component of a course. Findings indicated that a whole range of students benefited from taking these courses. Examination of prior exposure suggests future development of diversity courses: comprehensive assessment of entering students, course planning, academic advising. The study supports the existence of a conceptual model that provides the rationale for the organizing of these courses. It provides a number of competencies by which future studies can be developed. Self perception measures are weak in assessing actual skill acquisition. This study recommends future studies that would examine skill development.