University of Arkansas at Little Rock

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Assessment

Assessment Report Spring 2003 UALR Progress Report Form
Bachelor of Social Work Program

I. Use of Assessment for Program Building and Improvement:

1. Describe how you have used assessment findings to understand, improve, and/or make decisions regarding the program. What changes to your program (if any) have you made or does your information suggest you make?

As reported in the BSW Spring 2002 progress report, data collected during the 2000 – 2001 assessment period had indicated that one area of weakness in the curriculum was preparing students for macro-level practice. Although students were rated highly in their acquisition and demonstration of the social work knowledge, skills, and values needed to work effectively with individuals, families, and organizations, there was an apparent deficit in the area of working with communities. To address this deficit in macro-level content and experience, the BSW program implemented a Community Project which covered four semesters and was integrated into the curriculum content of six courses. The purpose of the community project was for students, working in groups, to participate in all phases of social work practice at the macro level: assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, and termination. Students were to integrate knowledge, skills, and values gained across the social work curriculum to complete graded assignments, which build upon each other, in Human Behavior and the Social Environment II, Policy II, Social Work Research, Practice I, Practice II, and Practice III.

This project was initiated during the Spring 2002 semester. At the end of that semester, data were collected through the use of student surveys regarding how well content related to each course learning objective was being provided and how well students felt they were achieving each course objective. In analyzing those data, it was clear that the newly initiated Community Project was not structured in a way that would result in the acquisition of targeted social work skills, knowledge, or values.

Specifically, student feedback indicated that the project was too vague and too broad. Students were unsure about the specific goals of the project, and could not relate the activities they were involved in back to these goals. It became obvious that the project would need to be revised. Faculty met over the summer and delineated a plan for the completion of the project that had begun in the Spring. One piece of the original project became the focus of student activities.

Moreover, the Community Project was revised in order to 1) focus on a specific target population for the collection of data, and 2) focus on addressing only one of the needs identified through data collection. This revised form of the Project is being implemented this semester – Spring 2003.

Additionally, the faculty decided to add a specific course on macro-level practice to the curriculum. The course, created by Dr Krain, will be distributed to the College of Professional Studies curriculum committee by March 15, 2003.

2. Explain the method(s) used to measure the objective(s) assessed this year, explaining (a) the rationale for the method; (b) the procedures used for collecting the data, including decisions regarding which students were assessed and when; (c) the procedures and criteria used for evaluating the data; and (d) how reliability and validity were addressed in regard to this method.

Components of Program Evaluation

Component I: Evaluation of the success of students in achieving individual course objectives by both instructors and students, and the success of each course in providing content relevant to each objective.

Successful student achievement of objectives in each individual course was to be measured two ways: 1) the instructor's assessment of individual student achievement on each course objective, and 2) each student's assessment of her/his individual achievement of each course objective.

In December 2001, and May 2002, all formally admitted social work majors completed surveys evaluating their achievement of individual course objectives and the success of each course in providing content relevant to course objectives in all social work courses.

Because of the concerns regarding the reliability of these data, caution is used in interpretation. However, during this past evaluation cycle, these data provided immediate feedback regarding problems with the newly initiated Community Project. This feedback was then used to inform changes that were made in the Project design.

Component II: Evaluation of the success of students in achieving overall program objectives by students and field instructors.

All graduating seniors completed an overall evaluation of the program in meeting program objectives, and provided qualitative data concerning what they felt were the strengths of the program as well as areas of needed change. Reliability is assessed by comparing students' demonstrated achievement of program goals as specified on their learning contracts. This achievement is graded by field instructors.

Component III: Evaluation of the relevance of overall program objectives by alumni, social work practitioners in the community, and graduate program faculty.

In April 2001, qualitative data regarding the program were collected from Community Advisory Board members, field instructors, and graduate social work faculty during the site visit by CSWE. Written and verbal comments were collected by site team members, and shared with the BSW faculty.

Component IV: Evaluation of the relevance of overall program objectives through comparison of program graduates to other BSW graduates statewide and across the nation.

In Fall 2001, the BSW program began participating in the Bachelor Education Assessment Project (BEAP) developed by the Bachelor of Social Work Education Program Directors Association (BPD). This assessment project provides several types of data collection instruments designed specifically to measure the extent to which bachelor-level social work students can demonstrate the acquisition of the knowledge, skills, and values related to the content mandated by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE).

Data are analyzed by BEAP program staff and a report is issued annually in February. We received our first report this Spring.

There are 5 data collection instruments used as part of the BEAP. These are:

3. Describe the findings of the past twelve months' assessment activities. Explain how you interpret these findings.

Social Work Values at Entrance

Below is a summary of the BEAP findings and interpretations to date.

According to the BEAP interpretation guidelines for the Social Work Values survey, scores on each of the three subscales – Confidentiality, Self Determination, and Social Justice - can range between 0 and 100 with scores closer to 100 indicating more acceptance of the value. The internal consistency reliability for the entire scale using Cronbach's alpha is high at .81. The guidelines suggest that the mean scores for individual programs be compared to the national means with individual means falling within plus or minus one standard deviation from the national mean being interpreted as statistically indistinguishable.

Thus, these data indicate that our students exhibit a similar level of acceptance of core social work values upon entrance to the program as students in the national sample. These data will be more valuable after we administer the Social Work Values Inventory to our graduating seniors who took the entrance survey in Fall 2001. A t-test comparison of these data will be provided in our 2004 BEAP report.

Exit Survey

Table 2. Mean Scores: Exit Survey

The data collected from graduating seniors Spring 2002 using the Exit Survey indicate both program strengths and areas for improvement. First, although the overall means for both educational and professional advising indicated students tend to rate these activities from “good” to “very good,” further assessment of these areas may reveal particular problems students are experiencing.

In assessing how well students thought the program prepared them, they assessed the program overall, and in the areas of knowledge, skills, and values. The overall mean of 7.44 is in the range of “very good” on the scale, which is a strong finding. The range in value preparation is similarly high (7.44 – 8.94). However, the lower-end means for both knowledge (6.19) and skill (6.06) are concerning. Fortunately, the individual content areas under each category with lower means can be reviewed and suggestions for strengthening these areas will be made.

Alumni

In the Fall of 2002, 55 alumni surveys were sent to BSW program graduates. This represented 93% of all BSW program graduates (55/59) since the program began in 1997. By December, 2002, 20 graduates had returned their surveys for a response rate of 36%. Of these 20, 12 or 60% were currently employed in a social work position and 16 or 80% had completed, were completing, or been accepted into a graduate social work program (note that these groups are not mutually exclusive).

 Table 3. Mean Scores: Alumni Employed in Social Work Positions

It is interesting to note that the mean scores in overall preparation and in preparation in the categories of knowledge, skills, and values all are higher for the alumni survey compared to the exit survey. Of course, it is not known if these differences are statistically significant, and the response for the exit interview was extremely high at 93% while the response rate for the Alumni survey was low at 36%. Still, it is possible that differences in these means are related to the “real world” experiences of the graduates. Again, the individual content areas in the categories of knowledge, skill, and values can be more closely assessed and suggestions for change made.

The 16 graduates who are in or who have completed an MSW program represent 50% of the alumni who have entered graduate programs. Their mean rating of the preparation provided by the BSW program of 8.79 on a 10-point scale indicates that the BSW program is meeting its objective of preparing students for graduate school.

Employer Survey

Employer surveys were mailed with the Alumni surveys. Program graduates were asked to give one to their employer if they were currently employed in a social work position. Since 12 of the Alumni respondents indicated they currently were employed in such positions, the 5 employers who sent in surveys represent a 42% response rate.

Respondents rated 14 items on the scale used in the other surveys. The mean ratings ranged from 7.80 on “evaluates effectiveness of programs” to 9.40 on “understands, respects and appreciates diversity” using the 10-point scale. Each of the individual items will be discussed in conjunction with the ratings from graduating seniors and alumni to inform curriculum changes.

I. Faculty and Stakeholder involvement:

 4. Describe how the faculty in your program were involved during the year in the assessment process and in decisions made as a result of assessment.

 All faculty participated in the collection of data and in the discussion of findings. The faculty as a whole made recommendations based on findings.

5. Describe how other stakeholders (e.g., students, alumni, or employers) were involved during the year in the assessment process and in decisions made as a result of assessment.

Data were collected from students, alumni, employers of graduates, field instructors and from members of our Community Advisory Board as described above.

III. Approach:

 6. State the goals of your program.

The specific goals of the BSW program are:

The knowledge, skill, and value objectives of the program were also revised to reflect expectation that graduates will be able to effectively use generalists social work skills at all system levels.

Knowledge Objectives: Upon completion of the BSW program, students are expected to:

Skill Objectives: Upon completion of the BSW program, students are expected to:

Value Objectives: Upon completion of the BSW program, students are expected to:

The design for the assessment of our program provides for data to be collected on every objective every year. 

Assessing Assessment (for information purposes only - not to be rated by readers' panels)

1.  Evaluate your assessment progress:  what are the strengths and weaknesses of your work thus far? 

The strengths include the breadth of information gathered.  In addition to information from students, faculty, field instructors, community board members, and graduate faculty, we now have data from alumni and employers.  Although we have just begun the process of exploring those data, the information should be helpful.

We also have created a nice balance between internal and external measures through the use of the BEAP.

2. Estimate the amount of time and money that you spent this year on assessment.  If you received funding, please list the amounts and sources.  What additional resources would be helpful, and what would you do with such resources?

The time spent in assessment activities was approximately 120 hours.  These hours were used in data collection, data input, data analyses, discussing and disseminating findings.

To date, we have received over $300 from the Dean's office in the College of Professional Studies for BEAP instruments.  I have found the university administration to be very helpful in providing resources.

3. What changes, if any, would you recommend to the assessment process in your college or in the university as a whole?