Abstract: Measuring Child Welfare Service Job Aptitude: An Assessment of Construct Reliability and Validity (Society for Social Work and Research 29th Annual Conference)

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Measuring Child Welfare Service Job Aptitude: An Assessment of Construct Reliability and Validity

Schedule:
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Jefferson A, Level 4 (Sheraton Grand Seattle)
* noted as presenting author
Jiwon Nam-Speers, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Florida State University
Lauren Stanley, PhD, Assistant Director, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Lisa Magruder, Director, Florida State University
Dina Wilke, Professor, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Background and Purpose: Traditional human resource management strategies may not fully translate to the unique demands of child welfare workplaces. Specifically, the child welfare literature makes many assertions that the attributes of individuals who pursue child welfare careers differ in important ways from other types of workers in different fields. Since positive outcomes in child welfare hinge heavily on the individual qualities and skills of caseworkers, and influences their career advancement, we propose a new approach. Our goal is to advance the study of these assertions shown in child welfare literature by developing a tool to identify Child Welfare Service Job Aptitude (CWSJA). This scale represents a worker’s predisposition to respond to the job grounded primarily in child welfare. It assesses a range of knowledge, skills, abilities, and perceptions specific to child welfare. The emphasis is on understanding complex situations and applying the necessary skills, while also considering the essential qualities of a successful child welfare worker.

Methods: The present study uses data from the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (FSPSF), a longitudinal cohort study of either previous or present child welfare or human service workers (N=1,500), recruited between 2016 and 2017. Baseline survey data was collected during pre-service with follow-up surveys every six months for 3.5 years. For the current study, we used the Wave 7 (about 3 years employed) dataset (n=1,040; number of items=102). A Confirmatory Factor Analysis calibrated the CWSJA identification provided by caseworkers. This study involves modeling a preliminary measurement before implementing the 'outcome-based' model of exit, voice, and loyalty, specifically in relation to Career Continuity at a later stage.

Results: The CWSJA identification scale was conceptualized with six dimensions: Career Advancement Prospects (5 items; Cronbach α=0.713; RMSEA=0.08, CFI/TLI=0.982/0.964, SRMR=0.022), Organizational Support and Fairness Perception (12 items; Cronbach α=0.953; RMSEA=0.10, CFI/TLI=0.90/0.90, SRMR=0.039), Perceived Social Recognition in Child Welfare (5 items; Cronbach α=0.999; RMSEA=0.10, CFI/TLI=0.976/0.952, SRMR=0.024), Career Clarity and Goal Orientation (5 items; Cronbach α=0.927; RMSEA=0.2, CFI/TLI=0.950/0.900, SRMR=0.047), Career Continuity (5 items; Cronbach α=0.68; RMSEA=0.2, CFI/TLI=0.912/0.825, SRMR=0.069), and Self-Efficacy in Child Welfare (5 items; Cronbach α=0.65; RMSEA=0.2, CFI/TLI=0.933/0.866, SRMR=0.045). The data was reduced according to the factor loadings, error variances, and model-data fit indices from a total of 102 items to 37 items. The factor analysis reports reliability and validity results.

Conclusions and Implications: This initial effort to develop a measure of CWSJA produced a multidimensional construct grounded in child welfare theory. One challenge that we have is a potential refinement of the scale could raise both theoretical and empirical issues in the dimensionalities. Nevertheless, the CWSJA scale can be a valuable tool for accumulating empirical evidence about important facets of child welfare by assessing attitudinal changes among participants in child welfare workforce program. Another use for the CWSJA scale is to measure differences in career orientation among public, business, and nonprofit samples. Thus, the CWSJA scale can be used to acquire valid and reliable data about many important questions in child welfare.