Development and Validation of a Field Evaluation Instrument to Assess Student Competency

ABSTRACT

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) issued new requirements for social work educational programs in 2015, identifying a new set of competencies for students to be effective social work professionals. Social work programs are expected to measure students’ competencies to demonstrate the effectiveness of their education. However, few measurement tools that focus on these revised competencies have been published in the social work literature, and consequently, social work educators lack sufficient tools to accurately measure students’ performances. This article reports on the development and validation of the Field Evaluation Instrument (FEI), a tool designed to assess the 2015 social work competencies of social work students in the generalist practice context. It documents the development of the FEI, which was informed by the existing literature, and the CSWE’s Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, as well as item development and survey design procedures. The resulting 69-item, 9-scale FEI demonstrated excellent factorial validity, strong internal consistency, and robust external validity as evidenced by the positive correlations with students’ grade point average in the social work major. The FEI fills an important gap in social work education by contributing a valid tool to assess the CSWE competencies. Further implications for social work education are discussed.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Faculty Development program.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeannine M. Rowe

Jeannine M. Rowe is associate professor and

Yeongmin Kim

Yeongmin Kim is assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Yiyoon Chung

Yiyoon Chung is assistant professor at Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea.

Sarah Hessenauer

Sarah Hessenauer is associate professor at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.