Anne E. Fortune
School of Social Welfare
University at Albany
135 Western Avenue
Albany NY 12222
phone: 518 442-5322
fax 518 442-5380
e-mail rfortune@albany.edu
Purpose: Students’ learning in field education should
be dependent in part on the learning activities available to them.
This study investigated which educational learning activities were associated
with students’ self-assessed outcomes and their field instructors’ ratings
of their skills.
Methods: Social work students in field practica were asked how much they had engaged in educational learning activities such as receiving feedback on process recordings, observing role models, and dealing with conceptual frameworks for their practice. One hundred eighty students from four BSW and MSW programs completed the questionnaire and permitted access their field instructors’ evaluation of the students’ skills. Forced entry least squares multiple regression was used to predict four outcomes: student perception of the quality of field instruction, satisfaction with field practica, self-rating of social work skills, and field instructor evaluation of skills.
Results: Students who received more feedback and participated more in activities designed to generalize learned skills rated the quality of field instruction higher (adjusted R2=.66) and were more satisfied with field (adjusted R2=.51). Feedback was also related to higher self-rating of skills, as was more conceptual frameworks (adjusted R2=.20). The only activity related to the field instructors’ rating of students’ skills was balanced emphasis on both cognitive and emotional development (adjusted R2=.05).
Implications for Social Work Education: Supervisors can enhance student motivation by providing feedback and structured activities that help generalize skills. By keeping a balance between cognitive and emotional growth, educators may also enhance student learning more directly, although educational learning activities were not strong predictors. The results add to knowledge about what is necessary for successful field education to prepare students as quality professionals.