Abstract: Results from the Gade Quality Guidelines Survey for Ph.D. Programs (Society for Social Work and Research 26th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Racial, Social, and Political Justice)

Schedule:

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Congress, ML 4 (Marriott Marquis Washington, DC)

* noted as presenting author

G. Lawrence Farmer, PhD, Professor, Fordham University, New York, NY

Cynthia Franklin, PhD, Professor and Associate Dean of Doctoral Education, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Beverly Black, PhD, Jillian Michelle Smith Professor in Family Violence Research, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

Mo Yee Lee, PhD, Professor, PhD Program Director, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Xiao Ding, MSSA, Doctoral student, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Background

Since the early 1990s, research into PhD curricula have emphasized increasing and strengthening advanced research education leading to a focus on improving research courses. GADE guidelines were designed specifically to promote excellence in PhD education. PhD programs use GADE guidelines in their initial and ongoing development and to inform program assessment and improvement. The first GADE Guidelines for Quality in Doctoral Education were developed in 1992 to help schools create and sustain quality doctoral education. In 2003, GADE updated the guidelines addressing faculty and student issues, curriculum, and resources required for a quality social work PhD program. In 2011, a task force revised the guidelines to reflect the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate to prepare students to be stewards of the discipline. In fall 2020, a task force co-sent a national survey to update the past GADE guidelines. The national survey was distributed during the center of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, and items were added to reflect the changing social and educational conditions within PhD programs.

Method

Items were designed using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all important to 5 = extremely important) to reflect on the importance of various indicators for promoting high-quality social work PhD education. Items on the survey are a revision of the items that have been used on GADE” S past surveys (1992, 2003, 2013) and have been updated by the GADE board, GADE membership, GADE task force, and faculty members who have expertise on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Anonymous link to the survey was distributed through Qualtrics platform from December 2020 through February 28, 2021 to numerous listserves, including social work education’s organizational listserves (GADE, MSW, BSW, NADD) and more specific topical listserves (CSWE-vaw). The survey had 732 recorded responses. The sample included in the final analysis is N= 483. Descriptive data analyses were conducted to examine the accordance and deviance in attitudes of aspects on quality PhD program among different participant groups that completed the survey.

Results

There are 49 PhD program directors (10.14%), 27 deans (5.59%), 7 BSW/MSW directors (1.45%), 140 social work faculty (28.99%), and 234 PhD students (48.45%) who completed the survey. Data analysis included the examination of items across participant groups and showed a high consistency across item responses for different participant groups with only a few statistical differences between groups.

Conclusion

For the past thirty years, the GADE Guidelines for Quality in Doctoral Education have been beneficial to PhD programs with aims to improve research and rigor in PhD education. The GADE national survey’s most recent results are presented that provide new data, that examines expectations for research and statistical training, and other curricula that need to be included in a quality PhD program.