The Influence of Professional Practice on MSW Students' Establishment of Professional Identity

Background: In the perspective of identity theory, the process of human identity has been considered divided into three stages: imitation - assimilation - internalization. And the recognition of identity is triggered by meaningful and realistic experience. Therefore, to explore the professional identity of social work, we must explore professional practice. Based on the theory of identity, this study analyses how professional practice affects the establishment of professional identification of social work students from the perspective of internal influence and external influence.

Methods: Data were collected using a cross-sectional design. The on-line questionnaires were administered in all the 61 MSW programs in Mainland China and all the full-time MSW students (1652 in total), who will be graduated in 2015, are invited to participate in the survey. Theoretically guided structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among the key latent variables, the mediation effect, and moderation effect.

Results: 848 MSW students completed all the items of the questionnaires (73.6% female, 62.5% with BSW degree, and 88.4% from families of thosethose whose annual household income is below USD 16200. The students from 57 MSW programs have participated in the study (93.4% of the total 61 programs). Response rate is 51.3% (848/1652). First of all, in contrast to the rapid development of social work, the public has low recognition of social work. Although social work in China has entered a stage of vigorous development, it does not fundamentally change the social public occupation of the profession and professional understanding and recognition. Secondly, The source of social work organization is mostly for the government to purchase services or to finance its work. In order to obtain more survival capital, although many social work organizations have increased in the number of services for governments, but have not been able to bring quality improvement. In addition, the positive effect of motivation on students' engagement is much stronger in the social work programs with qualified implementation of field curricula than those with limited implementation.

Implication: The public awareness, social work institutions and the implementation of field curricula play an extremely influential role in social work students' professional identity. And at same time, professional identity in the process of identity is the subject of the role of the subject. Its original beliefs, values, attitudes, etc. will have an internal impact on the process of professional identity. The professional practice do have an impact on social work students.. Although in the field of expertise, knowledge and skills are the most common places for students, but the professional value of the interaction and professional recognition should be more focus.