1,720,958 research outputs found
Practice makes perfect: Designing Integrated Learning Experiences in Social Work Education using Laurillard’s ‘Conversational Framework’ for Learning
Get PDFProviding an integrated curriculum in social work education is a complex task and the profession has long struggled with how best to link knowledge and practice in qualifying studies. This prompted the author to design a unit of study inspired by Laurillard’s seminal ‘Conversational Framework’ for learning, which suggests that opportunities for questioning and dialogue with an expert provide a pivotal mechanism for integrating learning. In this model discussions need to be hard wired into experiential learning opportunities; both of which must occur simultaneously. Bespoke e-learning curriculum materials were, therefore, developed to be studied alongside an experience of social work and dialogue with practitioners. The unit was located on a Step up to Social Work (child and family) qualifying programme, delivered jointly with partner local authorities, which meant that greater access to practitioners was possible. Realist evaluation analysis of student feedback suggests that being able to synchronously draw on learning from experiencing practice and bespoke academic input, in dialogue with practitioners, can help students to develop more integrated understandings of the skills and knowledge required for social work practice.
The importance of practice learning in social work: do we practice what we preach?
No full textThis paper reports on themes identified from focus group discussions with practice educators, in which they articulated concerns about factors that limited their work with students on placement. Four key themes are identified from analysis of the data: (1) The absence of workload relief for agency based practice educators; (2) A lack of knowledge about the academic curriculum in qualifying social work programmes; (3) A sense of isolation from universities placing students with them; (4) Concerns about the quality of practice learning experiences they could provide to students. Expressions of guilt and anxiety were a prominent feature of the focus group discussions. Almost all the practice educators felt that their work in this role was not good enough. They were concerned about standards and missed opportunities to work developmentally with students who may be at risk of failing, or conversely to stimulate those who were more able. The findings suggest that universities should consider whether practice educators are sufficiently connected with other parts of the social work education system to fulfil their role
Grading individual observations of practice in child welfare contexts: a new assessment approach in social work education
No full textStudents in the Frontline social work qualifying program undertake seven graded observations of practice in child welfare contexts during their qualifying studies. Before the Frontline program, educators had not attempted to implement graded observations of practice in a qualifying program in the United Kingdom. In this paper, we seek to show how graded practice observations have been undertaken in the Frontline program and provide information about the research base informing its development. A summary of findings from three preliminary research studies are presented. We suggest it is possible to grade practice consistently in child-welfare social work. However, we found considerable variation in marks awarded and evidence of grade inflation in all three studies. Using an interpretive lens, we argue that differences between graders should be anticipated because this is a complex assessment task requiring context-dependent judgment. We recommend developing a “consensus discussion” approach to moderation to improve reliability of grading practices, in which graders are encouraged to make the reasoning behind their grading decisions explicit
Are we making the most of learning from the practice placement?
No full textIt is almost universally accepted within social work education that placements are a defining feature of training and ‘… have a more profound and lasting impact than classroom teaching’. Consequently the placement is regarded as the signature pedagogy in social work education. However, it is also asserted that universities pay little attention to this aspect of teaching and concerns about a ‘significant level of disjunction between academic and practice learning’ are expressed. The development of a new distance learning MA social work programme in which units are studied alongside part-time placements afforded opportunities for innovation in curriculum delivery, alongside increasing connections with learning on placement. Practice educators were invited to respond to an online mixed methods survey exploring their perceptions of the programme and views as to how greater integration of academic and practice learning can be achieved in social work education generally. Analysis of the results identified the important role which supervision with the practice educator can play in integrating learning on placement with the academic curriculum. The paper concludes that a greater focus on learning from practice may offer opportunities to maximise the learning potential of the placement as social work's signature pedagogy
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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