Enhancing the effectiveness of field education in mainland China : achieving students' competence through their self-determinate practice engagement

Abstract

Background: Economic development and social transition, emergent social problems, and the series of governmental policies aiming to construct a harmonious society have fostered the remarkable development of social work education in Mainland China. However, the development of social work field education has been lagging behind that of academic training. Adopting the perspective of structuration theory, this research focuses on the inadequate field education from the perspectives of how current social work institutions cultivate social work students’ competences and how the students’ human agency plays a role accordingly in the transformation of these structures.

Objectives: In order to study students’ competence as the most important learning outcome, the self-determination perspective on student engagement theory is adopted to investigate their preparedness, achievement motivation, perceived autonomous support, field engagement, and how these factors influence students’ competence. The research leaves enough room to let students voice themselves to discover their intentions to make changes in the structures as a way to study the potential impacts of students’ agency in the transformation of the structures.

Methods: There were three phases in this study—scale validation in Mainland China, a model development for the practice learning, and the initiation and exploration of students’ suggestions on how to change their institutions. First, the indicators of Perceived Social Work Competence Scale (PSWCS) for validation were generated by a broad empirical review of recent literature, confirmed by experts, and indigenized by means of two focus groups of students. Exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Second, a cross-sectional study with on-line survey was conducted in all 60 MSW programs with 1,652 full-time students. Data analysis was based on theoretically guided structural equation modeling. Third, the written transcriptions from the students were read several times and three-level coding was then employed: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.

Results: First, the 48-indicator PSWCS (including nine subscales) demonstrated excellent internal consistency, acceptable test-retest reliability, satisfactory factorial validity. Next, 848 (51.3%) MSW students from 57 (93.4%) MSW programs participated in the study. Fit indexes of the measurement model showed adequate model fit (CFI = 0.961; RMSEA =0.045) with five latent variables. The structural model of MSW students’ preparedness, perceived autonomy support, and achievement motivation affecting their perceived competence with engagement as a full mediator showed good model fit (CFI = 0.954, RMSEA = 0.043, R^2 =45%). Finally, the participants showed strong tendencies to make changes in school-level and agency-level structures (82% of all the participants made meaningful inputs).

Implication: MSW students’ social work competence can be achieved through their self-determinate engagement in the practice learning by emphasizing students’ roles in proactively and intentionally initiating and enriching their learning engagement during the process of practice learning. The initiation and expansion of students’ tendencies to make change based on their suggestions in the open-ended question may indicate a way forward for social work field education in Mainland China. MSW students’ transformative capacity on themselves and on the social structures via their agency should be advocated and fostered.