Working Together for Better Social Work Education

This article looks at the development of user involvement in social work education at national policy level. It is written by a group of service users who are involved in Shaping Our Lives, the national independent user controlled organisation and network. The article looks at the background of user involvement in social work education and the work that Shaping Our Lives has done in the past. The new social work qualification requires user involvement in all its aspects and stages. The results so far have been patchy. Service users have made it increasingly clear that they want to be more directly involved in developing this policy alongside other stakeholders. They are particularly keen that some of the funding available goes to user controlled organisations to help develop service users' capacity to get involved and to ensure diverse involvement. The article looks at problems there have been in taking this goal forward and a positive initiative that has developed to help make it happen, led by service users, working collaboratively with other stakeholders.     

Using Decision Analysis: Connecting Classroom and Field

This paper reports on the findings of a small‐scale research project investigating the views of social work students on the use of decision analysis. After giving the context of the research, the article reports on what was found when students, who had just completed a Decision Making and Risk module, were asked for their opinions on the component parts of decision analysis, its use as a practice tool and their attitudes to using it on placement. The research found that the respondents in general took a critical and supportive stance towards the use of decision analysis in social work and, with extra teaching and a positive approach from their practice assessor, would be happy to use decision analysis. When the same group of students completed a follow‐up questionnaire on a placement recall day, half of them had thought about using decision analysis but only three had gone on to discuss this with their practice assessors. Some issues in relation to connecting ‘classroom’ and ‘field’ are identified and the paper concludes that a number of further steps would be necessary to realise the potential of decision analysis to help students be more systematic and analytical in their approach to decision making.     

Increasing Opportunities for Co-production and Personalisation Through Social Work Student Placements in Disabled People's Organisations

Social work student practice placements in disabled people's organisations offer several advantages for individual students, their peers and tutors, and DPOs themselves, who can offer placements for students in supporting service users to give their views as well as delivering social care services. In this context professional skills and anti-discriminatory practice are fostered through learning directly from disabled people as experts without the constraints of local authority policies.

This paper draws on my experiences of such student placements at Wiltshire and Swindon Users' Network over a 15-year period, 1993–2008, in collaboration with different universities. The social work student on placement here experiences an alternative organisational culture which recognises service users' expertise over professionals. The student learns to value collective peer support and working with activists who view their experience through the framework of the social model of disability. This facilitates a two-way exchange as the student learns about user-led practice and the disabled activists appreciate the skills the student brings.

The advent of policies of personalisation, the Big Society and the decreased role of local authorities is challenging the traditional model of adult care social work within local authorities. The placement of social workers in local centres for independent living, in order to provide intensive one-to-one support in support planning for those in complex situations, is only likely to increase in future. This can be seen as a positive alternative which enables professionals to rediscover their professional values and practice and extends the opportunity for placements beyond DPOs concerned with user involvement only.     

Technology Acceptance Model 3 and a Research Agenda on Interventions

Prior research has provided valuable insights into how and why employees make a decision about the adoption and use of information technologies (ITs) in the workplace. From an organizational point of view, however, the more important issue is how managers make informed decisions about interventions that can lead to greater acceptance and effective utilization of IT. There is limited research in the IT implementation literature that deals with the role of interventions to aid such managerial decision making. Particularly, there is a need to understand how various interventions can influence the known determinants of IT adoption and use. To address this gap in the literature, we draw from the vast body of research on the technology acceptance model (TAM), particularly the work on the determinants of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, and: (i) develop a comprehensive nomological network (integrated model) of the determinants of individual level (IT) adoption and use; (ii) empirically test the proposed integrated model; and (iii) present a research agenda focused on potential pre‐ and postimplementation interventions that can enhance employees' adoption and use of IT. Our findings and research agenda have important implications for managerial decision making on IT implementation in organizations.     

非英语专业学生词汇附带习得的研究

本文通过对阅读教学中学生的词汇附带习得进行探讨,分析了"投入量"假设的三个指标对阅读词汇附带习得的作用。阅读中,在投入了需要的任务下,评估(evaluation)对词汇附带习得起最大作用。     

分级教学模式下任务投入量对英语词汇附带习得影响研究

基于 “投入量假设” 研究,分析了在大学英语分级教学模式下,非英语专业基础班的学习者通过完成不同投入量的阅读任务附带习得词汇效果。试验结果仅部分支持 “投入量假设”,即投入量大的阅读任务一般比投入量小的任务更有利于词汇知识的习得和保持,但是并不必然有更好的效果。输出型任务比输入型任务能更好地促进词汇的习得和保持效果。一周后投入量较高的填空任务没能产生持久性的词汇保持效果。鉴于有限的英语课堂教学时间,提出几点相应的建议和措施以期在分级模式教学中提高词汇附带学习效率。     

Toward an Understanding of the Behavioral Intention to Use an Information System

Organizational investment in information systems is often large and risky given the variety of information requirements placed on systems today. To make more informed decisions and to meet the challenge of developing systems that satisfy these demands, system developers need to achieve a better understanding of factors that ultimately lead to system usage. To enhance this understanding, we posit a holistic framework to examine several constructs suggested in the literature that lead to the behavioral intention to use an information system. Our framework includes situational involvement, intrinsic involvement, argument for change, perceived usefulness, ease of use, prior usage, and attitude constructs. We extend the Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is founded on the Theory of Reasoned Action. A diverse sample from industry is used to test our model. Structural equation modeling is used to examine the entire pattern of intercorrelations among the constructs and to test related propositions. A hierarchical structure is used to compare the explanatory ability of TAM with our extension. Our model explains a large portion of the covariance among the constructs that lead to a user's behavioral intention to use an information system and compares favorably with TAM. The results indicate that (1) the direct effect of situational involvement on behavioral intention as well as attitude is significant in the negative direction, (2) attitude seems to play a mediating role, and (3) intrinsic involvement plays a significant role in shaping perceptions. Finally, we conclude that the user involvement construct needs to be separated into its psychological as well as its participative components for developers to understand its impact on the systems development process.     

二语词汇附带习得过程中认知投入量效应

阅读过程中的任务要求是附带词汇处理和记忆的决定因素。基于已有的词汇习得模型,通过比较三项不同投入量的阅读任务对非英语专业大学生的词汇附带习得的作用,重新分析验证任务诱发的认知投入量效应。结果表明,＂投入量假设＂模型不完全正确,以意义加工为目的的输入任务即使投入量很高,也不能很有效地促进词汇知识的习得。为未来的词汇教学和理论研究提供一些建议。     

The double-edge sword effect of interorganizational trust on involvement in interorganizational networks: The mediator role of affective commitment

Some organizations collaborate with other partner organizations to reach common goals, establishing interorganizational networks. The governance of the network is often enacted by an interorganizational governing team composed of the directors or top managers of the partner firms. This team plans, manages, and supervises the advancement of the network’s common goals. The success of the network depends, to a large extent, on the involvement of the members of the governing team. In this study, we tested a multilevel model of the antecedents of the involvement of governing team members in the management activities of interorganizational networks. We examined whether the relationship between team interorganizational trust, as a team level construct, and individual involvement in management activities is partially mediated by individual affective commitment. Using a sample of 101 respondents belonging to 28 interorganizational governing teams, we tested a multilevel mediation model. Results showed, as expected, a positive indirect effect of team interorganizational trust on individual involvement through individual affective commitment. However, unexpectedly, team interorganizational trust also showed a negative direct relationship with individual involvement. Based on our findings, we highlight the need to also consider the “dark side” of interorganizational trust, and we propose potential mediators to explain the unexpected negative relationship.     

Making It Our Own Ball Game: Learning and Assessment in Social Work Education

This paper discusses service‐user involvement in social work education. Drawing on practical examples, it engages with both the processes of developing service‐user defined assessment tools and the outcomes of applying such tools in practice. The paper uses practical experiences of the involvement of Advocacy In Action with the social work course at the University of Nottingham to illustrate the approach that has been developed, and draws on the testimonies of both academic and student partners in the learning process to support the validity of the assessment processes that have been devised.