Foundation Year Field Instruction in a Master of Social Work Program: A Comparison Study of Learning Outcomes for On-Campus and Off-Campus Students

<p>One of the major concerns in delivering a Master of Social Work program away from the main campus is comparability with the program as it is delivered on campus. Field education constitutes a substantial portion of the hours in a graduate program and is valued as the place where theory meets practice. Persons are involved in the delivery of field education include the students, the clients, the field instructors, and the field liaisons who teach the accompanying field seminars, and the Field Office personnel. This paper reports on a study that focused on learning outcomes of a foundation year field placement for on- and off campus students matriculating in a graduate social work program. This study also examined the data for the purpose of examining the two groups for comparability of learning outcomes. Input came from three perspectives: the student by self-report, the field instructors, and clients. The study measured students' professional growth as social work professionals, students' ability to perform basic social work tasks, and students' confidence in their ability to perform such tasks at a level a supervisor would consider excellent were measured in this study. On the vast majority of these variables both groups achieved a gain. No significant difference was found between the on-and off-campus groups on these variables.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2007

Author dc:creator

• Early, Martha T.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stephen W. Tonelson
• Dana Burnett
• Reginald O. York

• Field instruction
• Graduate education
• Learning outcomes
• Master of social work
• Off-campus
• On-campus
• Higher Education
• Social Work

Identifier

9780549069485

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.odu.edu:urbanstudies_etds-1012