Promoting Self-Awareness: An Undergraduate In-Class Activity and Its Value

ABSTRACT

Self-awareness is important in social work education because it promotes knowledge, skill, and value development. However, little is written about the ways in which educators facilitate this process. A project was undertaken to design a new self-awareness assignment (SAA) and examine its value. The SAA’s development, which relies on role-plays, is described. Results from an exploratory qualitative study that examined the value of the SAA on 80 undergraduate social work students’ knowledge and skills is presented. The results suggest the SAA is a positive teaching strategy for promoting students’ knowledge and skills development. Implications for social work education are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• self-awareness
• role-play
• peer feedback
• self-reflection

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Sarah Hessenauer for her contribution in developing the role-play scenarios and student prompts used in the research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The corresponding author completed this project through financial support as a fellow in the Wisconsin Teaching and Scholars Program supported by the following: The University of Wisconsin System Office of Professional and Instructional Development; the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Learning Enhancement, Assessment, and Research Network (LEARN) Center and Department of Social Work.