Cyber counseling is a new and growing medium for offering mental health services to children and youth. However, there is a lack of identification of the core competencies required to provide effective online counseling. A school of social work, in partnership with a national service agency providing online counseling to children and youth,…

Reliable and valid methods to evaluate student competence are needed in social work education, and practice examinations with standardized clients may hold promise for social work. The authors conducted a critical appraisal of standardized client simulations used in social work education to assess their effectiveness for teaching and for…

Although a growing literature examines competencies in clinical practice, competencies of students in macro social work practice have received comparatively little attention. A grounded-theory methodology was used to elicit field instructor views of student competencies in community, organization, and policy contexts. Competencies described by…

The development of standardized, valid, and reliable methods for assessment of students' practice competence continues to be a challenge for social work educators. In this study, the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), originally used in medicine to assess performance through simulated interviews, was adapted for social work to…

An exploratory study using qualitative methodology was undertaken with recent MSW graduates (N=12) from 2 graduate social work programs to identify and describe the students' emotional reactions to experiences in field education. Significant and interrelated themes emerged including the subjective and unique definitions of emotionally charged…

In its EPAS, CSWE (2008) identifies field education as the signature pedagogy (Shulman, 2005b) of social work education. This article analyzes the field education-signature pedagogy fit. It finds congruence in selected organizational arrangements that are pervasive and routine, and disparities with respect to expectations about public student…

The purpose of this study was to explore field instructors' experiences and insights in working with lesbian and gay MSW students. In-depth 1- to 1.5-hour interviews were conducted with 8 field instructors selected using purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using narrative thematic analysis and a constant comparative method. One set of themes…

This article examines the historical development, rationale, and implementation of selected field education accreditation standards. Those reviewed include the number of required field hours, the role of the field liaison, and employer-based placements. Archival data and field education literature from the Council on Social Work Education…

While the move to anchored scales has been an improvement in the standardization of field performance evaluation, these tools have not been found to consistently discriminate among student performances or identify students experiencing clinical difficulties. This article presents two efforts to redress this problem. The use of a new practice-based…

Social work literature provides analysis and strategies about teaching social work practice and its interrelationship with a diverse society. In this paper, we present a framework to aid instructors' understanding of and response to conflict in the classroom, which is unavoidable. We propose the "reflective practitioner paradigm" along with the…

This exploratory qualitative study elicited the complex constructs underlying experienced field instructors' perspectives about competence. Eighteen experienced field instructors were asked to describe exemplary and problematic students, as well as student performance on 7 core dimensions. Themes that emerged revealed the importance that field…

This article relates the evolution of field-related accreditation standards since the 1982 Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Curriculum Policy Statement to the changes that have occurred in agencies, students, and educational institutions. It demonstrates how CSWE modifications helped solve some problems while creating new ones. The authors…

Examined the reliability and validity of a measure to evaluate social work students' field performance. Results demonstrated a consistent factor structure with excellent internal consistency; however, there was inadequate consistency between ratings of individual students in their first and second field education experiences. Scores wee…

A survey of 62 social-work field educators investigated factors associated with effective interorganizational relationships, examining relationships between three categories of agencies and the university on four dimensions: commitment to education; organizational supports/resources; interpersonal relations; and collaborative/reciprocal…

A study of 230 graduate social work students investigated prevalence of various interests, preferred professional activities, and self-identifications associated with social work identity. Four distinct interest subgroups emerged: policy and research; private and direct practice with voluntary clients; traditional social work; and…