Exploring Managers' and Administrators' Retrospective Perceptions of Their MSW Fieldwork Experience

Abstract

Social work education has historically focused on clinical practice and community organization, rather than on the development of management skills, and research documenting the macro practice field experiences of social work students is scarce. A national retrospective study of the fieldwork experiences of social work managers was conducted based on competencies established by the National Network for Social Work Managers (NNSWM). The 200 respondents (63% response rate) were managers and administrators with an average of 20 years post-master's experience. Results of hierarchical regressions indicate that macro practice focus and years of experience were the only significant correlates of the participants' retrospective perceptions of both quality and intensity of their field experience as related to management competencies. A factor analysis of the competencies revealed three underlying factors-internal experiences, external experiences and evaluation experiences, accounting for 73% of the variance in the data. While this is the first national study of its kind, the limitations of retrospective evaluations with respect to faulty or distorted memories are acknowledged. Implications for educating future managers and for future research are discussed.

Key Words:

• Macro practice
• administration
• managers
• social work
• field placement
• social work education
• field experience