Response to Dean Bardill

Increasing demands for the accountability of social work education necessitate better methods of program assessment. In the technique described here, tested by a BSW program in 1992 and 1993, a Program Assessment Committee was formed to evaluate the collective work of randomly chosen seniors on three assignments. The results revealed strengths and weaknesses of the program and led to a reexamination of the assignments, the statements of desired program outcomes, and the curriculum itself.     

Response to Mark Lusk

This empirical study examined the association between social work students' ratings of teaching ability and several course, student, and instructor variables. Over 5,000 standardized evaluation forms rating instructors' specific skills and overall effectiveness were collected between 1991-93 at a school of social work in a large urban university. The results showed strong positive relationships between ratings of teaching effectiveness and ratings of skills reflecting course organization, rapport with students, and fair grading. This study supports the legitimacy of student ratings in assessing faculty, and the authors discuss implications for faculty development of the strong relationship between effective teaching and organizational skills.