Not Just Social Work Academics: The Involvement of Others in the Assessment of Social Work Students

Abstract

University regulations typically assume that the assessment of students is essentially a task for paid academic staff. However, this is a far cry from much of the current literature about assessment in social work education, of which one of the distinguishing features is the not infrequent references to stakeholders beyond the individuals who are to be assessed and the academic staff employed to teach them. This paper reviews some of the recent literature on the involvement of persons other than social work academics, including students, practice teachers and service users, in assessing students studying in social work programmes. Implications for programme providers of using non‐academic assessors are explored.

Keywords:

• Social Work Education
• Assessment
• Assessors
• Practice Learning
• Self Assessment
• Peer Assessment
• Service User Involvement

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education (SIESWE) as part of a larger study on assessment methods in social work. The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors.