Panel Presentations' Effect on Skills and Attitudes of Foundation-Year MSW Students: Two-Year, Mixed-Methods Study

Overview: We have offered community panel presentations as a standardized practicum orientation experience in the fall semester to Foundation-year MSW students, and tested effect of this activity on perception of social work skills and attitude towards practicum across two cohorts (n=296). Panels appear effective at readying students for first practicum.Proposal text:

Background: Schools of social work face challenges orienting Foundation-year Master of Social Work (MSW) students to practicum on a short timeline (Mehrotra et al., 2018). Practicum orientation should simulate practice experience, discuss applications of theory, acquaint field instructors with students, and offer an active learning environment (Allemang et al., 2021). Panel presentations from field instructors demonstrated promising pilot results for orienting Foundation-year MSW students to practicum (Eaton et al., 2019). As this first practicum is often in a community setting, community-based practitioners may be ideal presenters (Flanagan & Wilson, 2018). Based on the successful 2017 pilot, we replicated panels in 2018 and 2019 to assess impact on social work skills and attitudes towards practicum.

Methods: Panels occurred halfway through the fall semester of each MSW cohort’s Foundation year. Presentations were categorized under four themes: homelessness, addictions, disability, and settlement. Panelists reflected on their career journey and current shifts to help students conceptualize entering the field. Panelists were intentionally recruited to address critical human rights issues. MSW students often prefer hospital practicums; panels were designed to present community-based practice alternatives. Immediately before and after the panels, students completed the Social Work Skills scale (Wermeling et al., 2013) on MSW education quality and perception of social work skills, a Practicum Attitudes scale developed by the authors, and a qualitative post-panel reflection.

Results: Students (n=296) self-reported a strongly significant improvement on attitudes towards community-based practicum (t(217)=-4.882, p < 0.001). Reflection data indicate students were previously unaware of scope and variability of community-based practicum (“My ideas of social work practice have been enriched by these presentations”). Students self-reported a slightly significant reduction from pre- to post-test of quality of (i) MSW education (t(211) =2.13, p=0.034) and (ii) their perceived level of preparedness for practice, based on their MSW education (t(188)=1.235, p=0.219). Qualitative feedback indicates that panels were exciting and relevant to student interests (“I’m excited to enter the field…presenters talked about things I would love to do in the future”) and prompted students to consider readiness for their first field placement after approximately eight weeks of MSW instruction. As one student said, “This made me feel underprepared for practicum…my courses are designed to develop my theoretical and practical skills and I have to pay closer attention and practice more.” The panelists also discussed barriers to practice (“[The presenter] spoke about the effects of structural boundaries and the importance of policy change"), and the importance of critical reflexivity.

Conclusion: Panels are effective at improving student attitudes towards community-based practicum and may help students better regulate emotions by hearing real-life practice examples (Sewell, 2020). Panels may assist students construct a realistic sense of the profession early in their training, which may facilitate retention and job satisfaction. Follow-up regarding perception of skills and integration to practice may determine sustained effect of this orientation intervention. While the panels were not possible due to COVID-19 in Fall 2020 and 2021, some panelists pre-recorded videos. This presentation will discuss how to resume the full panel activity as we return to in-person instruction.