Students' Conceptualization of the Impact of Culture and Diversity with a Simulated Client

Background and Purpose: Cultural competence is an integral part of social work education and practice, but there are concerns about the adequacy of teaching and assessing culture and diversity in social work programs. Guiding documents such as the 2015 NASW standards and EPAS 2015 emphasize these competencies, for example, Competence 2: Engaging Diversity and Difference in Practice, states that students (1) examine how their own cultural values and biases might influence the therapeutic relationships, (2) elicit and understand clients’ cultural values, and (3) engage culturally appropriate and sensitive interventions. Social work has a history of teaching students about practice in the classroom and how to do practice in the field. The holistic competence framework in EPAS 2015 requires instructors to teach and assess students’ performance of diversity and difference in practice, including knowledge, skills, and cognitive and affective processes. Although cultural competence is an integral part of social work curriculum, courses and field education, there have been concerns raised about the adequacy of teaching and assessing cultural competence. Given the dearth of literature in this area, we conducted a qualitative study to examine how MSW students conceptualize and attend to diversity and difference in working with simulated clients.

Methods: MSW students (N = 60) in this study voluntarily participated in a simulation-based activity known as Practice Fridays. At each Practice Friday session students interviewed a simulated client and their practice was observed by peers, a field instructor, and a faculty member. They received focused feedback on their interview and completed a written reflection questionnaire which asked students to analyze how culture and diversity factors impacted the interview and helping relationship. Data collected in the reflection questionnaires were analyzed, using thematic analysis. Trustworthiness was established through researcher triangulation, peer debriefings and team meetings to arrive at consensus.

Results: The following themes emerged from the data: 1) Lack of cultural awareness and attunement in some students—Some students failed to identify any cultural aspects (in the client or in the self) that influenced their simulated interview; 2) Awareness of some cultural factors in the client, but challenges locating the self— While many students in this category identified cultural factors that were connected to the client, they did not engage the use of self, including their own values, assumptions and biases; and 3) “I felt that it was a sensitive topic and I was unsure how to approach it.”— Some students identified cultural factors in the client and in the self, but did not know how to address these when interacting with the simulated client.

Conclusions and Implications: Results suggest that attending to culture and diversity in practice remains an area in which students require more education and training. Simulation-based learning provides opportunities to observe students’ practice and give students specific and timely feedback. Instructors can intentionally assist students to reflect on their engagement with culture and diversity in practice, clearly demonstrating how these concepts can be applied in practice.