Three of the Grand Challenges identified by the social work profession are specifically related to health care: healthy youth development, closing the health care gap, and advancing long and productive lives. Idaho State University (ISU) initiated a collaborative interprofessional health education project (IET) over 30 years ago. This collaborative includes ten health care disciplines across five colleges and provides in-depth assessment and referral to three families annually. This study describes the development of a collaborative, high impact, teaching exemplar, and examines the knowledge, perceptions, and competency of participating students using the framework of the IPEC competencies and the CSWE practice competencies for social work education. Results are derived from a pre-post survey administered during the previous two years. The project includes two groups of students: those that engaged in a hands-on experience with a client and those that only observed clients. The Observation-Only group completed the SPICE-R2 and the IEPS. Students that had direct interaction with clients completed the IEPS (pre-post engagement with clients) as well as the ICCAS. Attitudes, perceptions, and perceived competency improved amongst students participating in the IET course from pre-assessment to post-assessment with moderate to large effects being observed.
Annually, nearly 20% of first-time, degree-seeking college students do not return after the first year. There are a variety of factors that impact a student’s ability to remain in college, including social and emotional factors, as well as institutional, structural and financial barriers. Due to the economic and employment advantage of a college degree, it is important to offer a variety of supports for students, in order to facilitate student persistence and college degree completion. This study examined the theoretical assumption that college student persistence and degree completion is influenced by individual wellness practices across a number of life domains: physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual. Undergraduate college students (n=266) completed an online survey in May, 2021 to examine the relationship between these five life domains and student persistence in college. Results indicate that four of the five life domains are predictive of student persistence in college. Spiritual wellness was not directly predictive of student persistence, but was significantly associated with social and academic factors that do influence student persistence. Recommendations for the higher education system are suggested for improvement of student persistence and degree completion.
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