Digital Literacies in the Practicum Space

Background

Despite the ubiquity of technology in social work practice, technology use is often considered a specialization. Conversations about technology are generally defined by risk management frameworks of professional liability and potential harm to clients, with some attention given to the importance of confidentiality, an ethical mandate of the profession. This ethics and liability discourse can obfuscate the greater promise and peril of technology use in social work, mirror legalistic and professional norms at odds with social work’s ethical commitment to advancing human rights and social justice, and scare off students and researchers from deeper engagement. While technology adoption can offer tangible improvements such as expanding access to services for marginalized populations (ie: the exponential growth of telehealth opportunities and AI-based chatbot integration for mental health services) and reconfiguring organizational processes (such as apps for public welfare benefits applications), it also creates new problems, ethical dilemmas, and unanticipated consequences. This project focuses on developing a technology inventory tool for the ethnographic study of technology use, data collection, and critical digital literacy among social work students in a large public, urban university in the United States. This tool is intended for use as an educational intervention to facilitate students’ critical examination of their technology use and data collection in practice, with a deep probing of the ubiquity, risks, liability, and potential benefits of technology in social work.

Methodology

The researchers conducted three focus groups with MSW students enrolled at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College completing practicum in 2024 and 2025. Focus groups were held on Zoom and lasted approximately 90 minutes. Focus groups consisted of open-ended questions such as:

• What data do you collect in your practicum/field setting?
• How do you collect it? (probe for expansive definition of data, i.e. intakes, case notes,

financial information, assessments, screenings, etc.)

Focus groups were recorded and transcribed. A thematic analysis of the transcriptions was conducted using ATLAS.ti.

Results

• Themes included concerns about compliance, uncertainty regarding technologies students are using, duplication of work in digital and physical spaces, and deterministic use of technology that directs the nature of their social work practice
• Students report receiving limited education within the social work curriculum on technology
• Training on specific technologies used in practicum settings is inconsistent (often ad hoc) and frequently nonexistent
• Students found the inventory tool helpful and at times unsettling (as it revealed gaps in their awareness of how technology and data collection was happening in their practicum spaces) and thought it could be a useful part of social work curriculum

Conclusion and Implications

As the site of professional enactment of social work values, practicum is an opportune space to integrate content regarding digital literacy in social work. Social work education can incorporate an expansive and appropriately reflective view of technology into social work curriculum, including in-class tech-based projects and consideration of the value and ethics underpinning its approach to technology use.