Social work educators’ perceived barriers to teaching with technology: the impact on preparing students to work with younger clients

ABSTRACT

The educational needs of current social work students have transitioned in time from fully face-to-face to hybrid and for some, to fully online instruction. This helps to address students’ need to save time and money, as well as it assists the higher education institutions to provide easier and more efficient access to education. The use of technology in educational instruction has a positive impact on the future social workers who have to address the needs of technologically savvy younger clients. This is due to parallels related to the access and the use of technology, communication preferences, and the wide use of social media platforms. A quantitative non-experimental research design was employed in this research study. Non-parametric statistics were employed. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the perceptions of barriers/challenges to eLearning among US and Spanish social work educators. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to find the differences in the perceptions of barriers/challenges to eLearning across different group characteristics such as age, academic position, and experience teaching online and hybrid courses. There are six main barriers/challenges identified in this article. When not addressed, these barriers could have a negative impact on social work students’ readiness to use technology in their future social work practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Elearning
• Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
• technological competence
• social work education
• higher education
• youth work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mioara Diaconu

Mioara Diaconu has a Ph.D. in Social Work, an MSA in Community and International Development, and an MSW degree. She is a researcher, a community and international development practitioner, a consultant, and a global social work educator. Currently, she is an associate professor at Western Michigan University. Some of Dr Diaconu’s research, teaching, and consultancy areas of expertise are: forced and volunteer migration, crisis intervention and emergency management, project cycle management and sustainable programs, as well as community development, among others.

Laura D. Racovita

Laura D. Racovita has a Ph.D. in Human Services with a Specialization in Management for Nonprofit Agencies, and an MSW degree. Currently, she is professor, teaching graduate courses in a hybrid program at Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN, USA. Some of her teaching and research areas of interest include: nonprofit management, social work ethics, program development and evaluation, culturally competent online and hybrid education, and trauma, crisis intervention, and emergency response.

Domingo Carbonero Muñoz

Domingo Carbonero Muñoz has a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Work with European Mentions from the Rey Juan Carlos University and The Spanish National Research Council. Currently, he is a professor of Social Work at La Rioja University, Spain. Some of Dr. Carbonero’s teaching and research areas of interest include: human rights, methodology on research, digital competencies, social exclusion, and social policy.

Sara J. Faubert

Sara J. Faubert has a BSW and an MSW from Western Michigan University. Additional to her job, she is a freelancer and consultant in de areas of research and evaluation. Some of her practice areas of expertise are related to working with youth populations.