Diversifying the Pipeline of Social Work Students Prepared to Implement Performance Measurement

ABSTRACT

Equitable opportunities for performance measurement learning among social work graduate students can create a diverse professional pipeline toward higher performing organizations. A Foundation-University partnership was developed to “expand the bench” of students, primarily of color, trained in performance measurement with the Results-Based Accountability (RBA) framework. Through an RBA designed course, 140 (50% of color, and 80% women) students engaged in team-based application of learning in “real-time” projects with partner organizations. Mixed-methods data collection showed that 90% of students performed successfully in graded content learning and project application of performance measurement. Students were empowered to apply RBA in current and future work. These skills can enable students as professionals to make data-driven decisions and achieve a results-oriented, learning-focused culture within agencies to benefit consumers and communities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The first author served on the CSWE’s leadership team for the Specialized Practice Curricular Guide for Macro Social Work Practice (2018) and contributed the performance measurement–related readings, exercises, and assignments.

Additional information

Funding

This work was gratefully supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation under Grant #215.0220.

Notes on contributors

Karen Hopkins

Karen Hopkins is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Megan Meyer is Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Jenny Afkinich is Lead Research Analyst at the University of Maryland.