What Do We Need for Signature Pedagogy in Field Practicum?

Background and Purpose: Field practicum is the “Signature Pedagogy” of social work education (CSWE, 2008). During the field practicum, students bridge social work theories and practice in field and learn professional skills. Field education is not education for understanding alone; it is preparation for accomplished and responsible practice in social work settings. To become a professional, field practicum provides opportunities to integrate classroom theories and field practice. However, the integration of theory and field practice is not automatic. Social work students frequently experience a discontinuity when they move from the classroom into the practicum (Vayda & Bogo, 1991). Further, there are limited studies to empirically test effects of integration between classroom learning and field learning. This study explored MSW students' learning activities in field practicum, such as observational activity, participatory activity, and conceptual linkage activity. Particularly, this study focused on conceptual linkage activities to integrate their classroom learning with practice learning in field. The purpose of this study was to examine main effect and interaction effect of conceptual linkage activities in learning outcomes.

Method: First-year MSW students in field practica were asked how much they had engaged in educational learning activities such as observational activity, participatory activity, and conceptual linkage activities for their practice. Students also rated satisfaction with field and social work skills as learning outcomes. Forced-entry ordinary least squares multiple regression was conducted to determine the main effect of learning activities and interaction effect in learning outcomes. In the response to the small sample size, data pooling was used as the process of combining cross-sectional and time-series data to produce a data set of 144 observations.

Results: For self-rated social work skills, learning activities were significant or nearly so: participatory activity (beta=.176, p=.084) and conceptual linkage activity (beta=.328, p<.01). In addition, observational (beta=.105, p=.089), participatory (beta=.311, p<.05), and conceptual linkage activities (beta=4.14, p<.001) were significantly associated with satisfaction with field practicum. From the results, the effect of conceptual linkage activity was greater than observational or participatory activities. The results also identified a significant interaction effect between participatory activity and conceptual linkage activity on satisfaction with field practicum. It indicated that the effect of participatory activity differed by the level of students' integration ability.

Implication: Traditionally, learning in field placement has been considered as “doing in the field” (George, 1982; Jenkins & Sheafor, 1982: Roche et al., 1999). However, the results indicate that the value of participatory activities were relatively limited. Supervisors and educators can enhance students' learning in field by providing more observational and conceptual linkage activities. Field practicum should be sufficiently rich and complex to allow for doing and thinking activities for integration of class and field. Students should be active both physically and psychologically during their field practicum. Thinking through a situation reshapes what students are doing while they are doing it (Schon, 1983, 1987).