Using a Group Work Practice Standards Inventory to Assess the Impact of a “Social Work Practice with Groups” Course

Abstract

This article describes the design and delivery of a group work course that has as its primary purpose the meeting of group work practice standards. This multisection course uses a common course syllabus and a team approach to ensure the fidelity of course implementation. The recent development of a standards-based inventory of competencies in social work with groups, which measures the perceived importance of, and confidence in performing practice standards, led to the decision to administer the inventory to the authors' students at the beginning and end of the course to see if students were in fact making significant progress in the group work practice skills articulated in the standards. The results indicated that students were significantly more confident in their group work practice skills; however a few areas, particularly the development of middle-stage skills, were in need of further attention.

Keywords:

• social work education
• social work with groups
• standards of practice
• assessing impact
• experiential learning
• multi-method research
• AAWSG and IASWG