Guest Editorial—Where's the Evidence for Social Work Education?

As the title of this guest editorial suggests, I am about to throw down a challenge to social work educators. The 2008 National Association of Social Workers' (NASW) Code of Ethics (NASW, 2008) demands that “[s]ocial workers who function as educators, field instructors for students, or trainers should provide instruction only within their areas of knowledge and competence and should provide instruction based on the most current information and knowledge available in the profession” (Section 3.02 a). Further, if social work education can be thought of as professional practice, then Section 1.04 c of the code (NASW, 2008) admonishes social work educators that

[w]hen generally recognized standards do not exist with respect to an emerging area of practice, social workers should exercise careful judgment and take responsible steps (including appropriate education, research, training, consultation, and supervision) to ensure the competence of their work and to protect clients from harm.

Although I do not know for certain that less than optimal instruction is harmful to social work students, I think it is reasonable to assume that poorly trained social workers might have the potential to be harmful to the eventual recipients of their services.

Thus, I assert that social work education, like any other social work practice, has an ethical duty to work toward evidence-based social work education. Social workers and social work educators do not always define the concept of evidence-based practice in the same way. For the sake of exposition, I will define evidence-based practice, after Sackett, Rosenberg, Muir Gray, Haynes, and Richardson (1996), as a process in which practitioners routinely consult the best available evidence about intervention effectiveness and use that evidence, together with their clinical experience and expertise, to make decisions in accordance with the wishes and values of their clients. According to the Social Work Policy Institute (2008), evidence-based practice in social work is a process in which practitioners combine knowledge of well-researched interventions with clinical experience, ethics, client preferences, and culture to guide and inform services. Most in social work agree that evidence-based practice is a process that involves asking practice-relevant questions, locating the best evidence to answer that question, evaluating the quality and applicability of the evidence, applying the evidence, and evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of that application. Therefore, if social work education is to become evidence-based in its practice, then we need to ask questions relevant to social work education; locate the best evidence to answer those questions; evaluate the quality and applicability of the evidence to our students, institutions, culture, and ethics; combine that evidence with our experience as educators in the form of curriculum modules; and evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of those curricular interventions.

Fortunately, many of the questions relevant to social work education have already been posed by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in the form of the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). According to Educational Policy 2.1 (CSWE, 2008), professional education in social work

is an outcome performance approach to curriculum design. Competencies are measurable practice behaviors that are comprised of knowledge, values, and skills. The goal of the outcome approach is to demonstrate the integration and application of the competencies in practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Therefore, some of the basic questions we need to ask are already defined for us by these accreditation standards: For social work students, what do we know about the effectiveness, efficiency, and acceptability of curricula for producing outcomes in the form of knowledge, values, and skills within each of the 10 core competencies defined by EPAS?

The second step in the evidence-based social work education process is to locate the best available evidence to answer these questions already formulated for us by EPAS. One readily available source for such evidence is this journal. According to the CSWE website (CSWE, 2013),

The Journal of Social Work Education (JSWE) is a refereed professional journal concerned with education in social work and social welfare. Its purpose is to serve as a forum for creative exchange on trends, innovations, and problems relevant to social work education at the undergraduate, master's, and postgraduate levels.

I would hope that JSWE would contain reams of evidence examining the outcomes of social work education within the 10 competencies defined by EPAS.

Unfortunately, the evidence pertinent to social work curricula is difficult to synthesize. My impression, and it is no more than that, is that although we have many evaluative reports of curricular innovations relevant to EPAS competencies, we probably do not have even coverage across the 10 competency areas. Further, although many of the studies that are reported collect data on student satisfaction, knowledge, and values, few report on objectively measured skills outcomes. Finally, although there are some controlled studies in the form of quasi-experimental designs, most evaluation studies reporting on social work education consist of one group—observational, pretest/posttest studies—hardly what Rubin and Bellamy (2012) suggests as high-quality evidence of effectiveness.

Certainly, there is some good information out there about either what works in social work education or how to measure social work competencies, and much of it appears in JSWE. For example, the article by Emlet (2010) on using a standardized client approach in training social work students for clinical gerontology; the article by Regehr, Bogo, Donovan, Anstice, and Lim (2012) that identifies competencies in macro-practice; the article by Bogo et al. (2011) about adapting objective structured clinical examinations to assess social work students' performance and reflections; and the article by Lough, McBride, and Sherraden (2012) to identify outcomes of international social work placements provide some solid ground on which to build knowledge. But how do we systematically locate and compile the best information available about effective, efficient, and acceptable social work curricula?

Perhaps some enterprising social work authors might undertake the task of conducting a systematic mapping (Gough, Kiwan, Sutcliffe, Simpson, & Houghton, 2003) of the evidence base for social work education. Studies included in such a systematic mapping should not consist solely of articles appearing in JSWE but should come from a variety of sources, published and unpublished, and should include reports submitted to CSWE as a part of accreditation or reaffirmation of accreditation documentation. Scholars undertaking the task of systematically mapping the evidence base for social work education might identify studies and evaluation reports related to each of the 10 competencies in terms of descriptions of the curricular modules identified; the student populations with whom they were implemented; the types of outcome data collected; and the types of designs used to conduct the evaluations. If such a mapping were to be conducted within competency areas, we might be able to systematically appraise the available evidence within that area, make summary statements about what is known, and be positioned to implement the best available evidence for social work education or work to improve on what has been shown to be associated with desirable outcomes.

Only when the work of systematically mapping and appraising the evidence base for social work educational competencies is undertaken might we begin to inventory what we know and what we do not know about social work education curricular interventions. These systematic reviews of social work education might stimulate additional research on social work curriculum, might provide a provisional evidence base of effective social work educational interventions, and might enable social work educators to practice what they preach in the form of evidence-based social work education.