Models of Interdisciplinary Programs in Social Work Doctoral Education

Social work doctoral programs increasingly embrace an interdisciplinary orientation and structure. In this paper, the strengths and weaknesses of interdisciplinary doctoral education are assessed in light of the ultimate training objectives. Six alternative models of interdisciplinary programs are identified based on the content of knowledge and the structure of the program, and the relative costs and payoffs of each model are analyzed. Such analysis should assist educational decision makers to evaluate more systematically their actual or planned doctoral program.     

Doctoral Education in Social Work: The Decade Ahead

ABSTRACT

Scientific and professional developments in the coming decade will have profound implications for social work doctoral education and the research and academic careers doctoral students are preparing for. These developments include the knowledge explosion, corporatization of the university and related effects, and the emergence of the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative delimiting key directions for social work research and practice. We consider potential effects of these developments on doctoral social work education and proffer curricular, pedagogic, and programmatic recommendations for improving doctoral education in the coming decade.     

Investigating Diversity in Social Work Doctoral Education in the United States

ABSTRACT

Despite its emphasis on social justice, social work in the United States has not always attended to issues of diversity in doctoral education. This article examines the state of the discipline’s research on traditionally underrepresented students in U.S. doctoral social work programs. An analysis of relevant peer-reviewed articles from social work journals revealed that this research has focused on demographic trends, degree motivation, student barriers, existing supports, and career navigation. Diversity in U.S. doctoral social work education is vastly understudied with the majority of scholarship focusing on ethnoracial difference. The limitations of this study are discussed, and future research directions are proposed including the need to examine various kinds of social differences and a wider range of support initiatives.     

Peer-Learning Networks in Social Work Doctoral Education: An Interdisciplinary Model

Peer-learning networks (PLN) can be valuable tools for doctoral students. Participation in these networks can aid in the completion of the dissertation, lead to increased scholarship productivity, and assist in student retention. Yet, despite the promise of PLNs, few studies have documented their effect on social work doctoral education. This article explores aspects of an interdisciplinary PLN focused on child welfare. This study used a questionnaire with scaled survey items and open-ended questions to examine the use, benefits, and challenges to participating in the PLN. After a brief review of the literature, this article presents findings from the study, discusses the implications for social work education, and concludes by explicating strategies for developing PLNs in social work education programs.     

Cultivating a Research Tool Kit for Social Work Doctoral Education

ABSTRACT

Social work doctoral education can prepare students to become research scholars whose work has impact by providing and promoting the development of an appropriately sophisticated and diverse research methods tool kit. Students can cultivate their tool kits through course work, mentored research experience, and specialized workshops. The tool kit is best grounded in guided reading of methodological texts—that is, reading methodological texts while conferring with advanced peers, faculty, and research supervisors—which provides essential teaching and experiences to enhance understanding and use. This article lays out a rationale for guided reading and provides an example of primer text and recommended readings to support guided reading for one set of related research methods: randomized experimentation and finite mixture modeling.     

Social Work Doctoral Education in Australia: The Case for Further Development

ABSTRACT

Social work education in Australia has been based in universities since the 1940s. There are now 32 higher education providers offering social work programs across Australia. The significant growth in master’s level qualifying programs in Australia, along with recent higher education policy changes, has increased the need for social work academic faculty members with doctoral qualifications. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review of literature on social work doctoral education. Despite a growing literature on social work doctoral education in international contexts, the review found that there is a lack of Australian research and evidence on social work doctoral pedagogy, the number and diversity of doctoral students, the doctoral student experience, and doctoral graduate employment intentions and outcomes. Addressing the lack of Australian research in this area would be an important step to enabling Australian social work to address future research training and capacity needs and directions.

IMPLICATIONS

• There is a lack of research on Australian social work doctoral education and this is a neglected aspect of social work scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) research.

• Research into social work doctoral education would provide baseline information on the number and diversity of students, doctoral student experiences, graduate outcomes, and employment intentions.

• Development of social work SOTL about doctoral education would support future research capacity and enable the advancement of social work research knowledge and skills.

     

Preparing Social Work Doctoral Students for Teaching

The results of a national survey of 51 social work doctoral program directors indicate that, although the majority of doctoral programs include preparation for teaching as a program objective, they offer limited formal course work and few opportunities for supervised teaching experiences. The authors discuss the results of this survey and make recommendations for better preparing social work doctoral students for their roles as teachers.     

Social Work Education

The authors assess the current state of social work education and make suggestions for its improvement, which include distinguishing between specialized and professional knowledge courses, teaching interpersonal skills for working with organizations and communities, differentiating subventionary and instrumental interventions, reformulating course content on policy and administration, dealing with the problems of social work’s expanding curriculum, broadening the range of activities and methods taught in social work research courses, providing incentives for collective faculty participation in curriculum development, and acknowledging the persistent anti-intellectual undercurrent in social work.     

Mindfulness in Social Work Education

Social work is beginning to explore the role of mindfulness in the education of future practitioners. This article reviews literature from social work education and other disciplines to suggest that there is much that is yet to be explored about mindfulness, its contribution, and the experience and implementation of it into the educational experience. I conclude with some reflections on areas requiring further attention and investigation in the role and teaching of mindfulness in social work education.     

Surprise in Social Work Education

Training is commonly seen as the most viable way of ensuring good quality care in residential homes for elderly people. The literature on training has focused on a shift in emphasis from traditional 'professional' social work training for staff at a senior level to training which is to be provided for junior level staff. To this end, Scottish/National Vocational Qualifications have been introduced which, through workplace assessment of competence, have been proclaimed to be the means by which to raise the status and career prospects of a social care workforce. This article argues that task-based competence is increasingly being seen as relevant for a 'para-professional' social care workforce such as that found in the residential care sector. In the light of this, research was undertaken to establish whether residents preferred 'trained' staff, holding formal qualifications and/or NVQs, to 'untrained' staff with no recognised qualifications. The research concluded that residents want kind, understanding and experienced staff, and when length of time in post was taken into account, the effect of training was negligible. The study concluded that homes need to select staff for their good personal qualities and encourage them to stay. Staff need training that integrates skill with understanding and above all, assessment should reflect this perspective. Moreover, residents need to be involved in the assessment process.     

Internationalism in Social Work Education

Internationalism is the study of social work programs and philosophies in other countries. It promotes a broad concept of generic social work that enables the social worker to function as a humanist with skills rather than as a specialist with humanistic inclinations. Knowledge of social work in other cultures provides valuable insight into dealing with cross-cultural and ethnic relationships in one's own country. It also suggests common linkages between diverse kinds of social work practices. International experience provides case examples and evidence of new kinds of skills that social workers need in a culturally pluralistic society.     

Microcomputers in Social Work Education

Microcomputer use has increased dramatically in the last five years. Use of this technology has expanded rapidly in social work education, but less rapidly in clinical practice. Trends in educational and practice uses of this technology are explored along with the limitations of and myths about computers in education and practice. Educational curriculum issues are identified and an outline for planning computers as transient information or enduring knowledge are covered. Concerns about availability of equipment and supports are raised.     

Time Diary and Questionnaire Assessment of Factors Associated With Academic and Personal Success Among University Undergraduates

Objective and Participants: A sample of 231 students attending a private liberal arts university in central Alberta, Canada, completed a 5-day time diary and a 71-item questionnaire assessing the influence of personal, cognitive, and attitudinal factors on success. Methods: The authors used 3 success measures: cumulative grade point average (GPA), Personal Success—each participant's rating of congruence between stated goals and progress toward those goals—and Total Success—a measure that weighted GPA and Personal Success equally. Results: The greatest predictors of GPA were time-management skills, intelligence, time spent studying, computer ownership, less time spent in passive leisure, and a healthy diet. Predictors of Personal Success scores were clearly defined goals, overall health, personal spirituality, and time-management skills. Predictors of Total Success scores were clearly defined goals, time-management skills, less time spent in passive leisure, healthy diet, waking up early, computer ownership, and less time spent sleeping. Conclusions: Results suggest alternatives to traditional predictors of academic success.     

Hypermedia Computer-Based Education in Social Work Education

Abstract

Hypermedia computer-based education (CBE) is an emerging information technology that makes possible user-directed, nonsequential exploration of, and interaction with, information presented through a variety of media including text, animation, graphics, sound, and video. This article describes hypermedia CBE and briefly reviews the research on its instructional efficacy. A synopsis of the theoretical foundation covers cognitive theory concepts of information networks and associative learning, web teaching principles, andragogical theory as it relates to social work education, and hypermedia CBE structure. Examples of current and potential applications in social work education demonstrate that hypermedia CBE can emulate the dynamic, iterative learning process of knowledge acquisition, knowledge testing, and content integration through practice simulation.     

Structural Equation Modeling: An Innovation for Doctoral Social Work Curricula

Abstract

This article offers guidelines for learning and teaching structural equation modeling (SEM). The essential ingredients of an introductory course are presented on the basis of the authors' experience teaching SEM over the past two years. Also discussed are successful and unsuccessful methods of instruction, a practical way to organize the course, and a means to integrate this material into doctoral social work curricula. Teaching SEM can be a practical and worthwhile way to ensure that the profession will have well-trained researchers.     

Student Advising in Social Work Education

Abstract

It is likely that social workers' involvement with rehabilitation services for the handicapped will increase. An understanding of the philosophical foundation of such services may be especially relevant now as social work education appears to renew its commitment to the study of ethics and values in society.     

Liability Issues in Social Work Education

This article reports on a spring 1995 national survey of program deans and directors on liability issues in social work education. Areas explored included programs' use of field training agreements, legal actions involving students in field placements, and formal procedures for and litigation resulting from termination of students and faculty. Court decisions and accreditation standards are linked to the findings, and comparisons are drawn to a 1988 study. Program size, rather than level or location, was found to be the key factor in the formality and use of established procedures.     

Curriculum Planning in Social Work Education

The authors identify two approaches to curriculum planning: rational-linear and heuristic-incremental. To offset the shortcomings of either the authors suggest a synthesis of both in the curriculum planning process. Several applications in using a combined approach illustrate greater flexibility in dealing with curriculum problems. Closely interrelated to the approach to curriculum planning are the factors of the educational continuum, the structure of the curriculum planning body, and the role of administrative leadership. These factors are explored as they impact on the process and outcomes of curriculum planning.