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Field seminar is designed in different ways across social work programs. Historically, use of field seminar entailed a group experience approach with an emphasis on providing mutual aid to students as they grapple with placement issues, development of professional identity and pursuit of professional goals. Given evolving CSWE standards and efforts to substantiate competency attainment, discussion among field colleagues has revealed that social work programs use field seminar with varying purpose, role and likely competency yield. Research on the effectiveness of field seminar with any type of structure or modality remains scant; therefore, it is important to assess for best curricular design through assessing competency attainment. This study explores students’ perceptions of their mastery of CSWE core competencies over the course of their first semester of an MSW program.
Methods: A mixed methods study design was utilized. Foundation year MSW students participated in a 10-session, 3 hours integrative field seminar, in addition to their practicum. Participants completed a 30-item survey that measured their mastery of the core social work competencies on a 5-point Likert Scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 5=Strongly Agree). The scale was designed to assess post and retroactive pre-test indices. Analyses consisted of paired sample t-tests and exploratory factor analysis.
Results: Overall competency attainment was assessed by collapsing all the items on the scale. SW students’ (N=119) attitudes significantly improved from a mean of 3.12 (SD .50) to 3.87 (SD .44) from the beginning to the end of the first semester; t(-12.86)=118, p=.000. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .78, above the commonly recommended value of .6, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (χ2 (435) = 1617.35, p < .000). The 30-item survey loaded on eight interpretable factors, which connect with the CSWE Core Competencies.
Conclusions and Implications: Our findings suggest that an integrative field seminar offered in conjunction with the field practicum improves students’ overall perceptions of their ability to apply core competencies to practice. Implications for social work research and education will be presented in this poster presentation.