Are Microskills Worth Teaching?

Abstract

Two experiments are reported which question the value of training students in nonverbal microskills. The first compared the reactions of trained and untrained students to responsive and unresponsive interviewing behavior. Contrary to predictions, trained students were found to place a lower value on both responsiveness and unresponsiveness than untrained students did. The second experiment replicated this finding and also found that: (a) the reactions of untrained students are more accurate than those of trained students in predicting clients ' reactions, and (b) nonverbal behaviors of responsive interviewers are not valued more highly by clients than behaviors of nonresponsive interviewers,

The Teaching and Learning of Communication Skills in Social Work Education

“…Contrary to expectations, and the findings of the other studies in this review, Barber's (1988) report of two experiments including 82 participants found that the reactions of students who had received microskills training were less accurate than the reactions of untrained students. Barber (1988) acknowledges that artificiality in the first experiment might have led to trained students being more critical than their non-trained counterparts. In the second experiment, Barber (1988) perceived similar ratings between untrained students and clients as evidence that the trained students were underperforming.…”

“…Design limitations are also apparent, with Barber acknowledging that the first year and final year student groups may have been different to each other on variables other than the training. Barber's (1988) experiments are important, because the findings that social work students appeared less able to judge responsive and unresponsive interviewing behaviour after training in microskills than counterparts who had yet to receive the training would suggest this teaching intervention could have an adverse, undesirable or harmful effect. However, other studies, including Toseland and Spielberg (1982), in which students were matched on factors such as demographic variables and pre-course experience produced more positive results.…”

Improving Student Confidence in Using Group Work Standards

“…Other approaches to teaching about the Standards are less direct (e.g., Shera et al, 2013). However, the process of instruction did not merely focus on worker skills, which may make students less client aware (Barber, 1988) but also directed students to see how each skill made the group experience for each member productive and helpful. For example, in planning for a group, one of the IASWG Standards says, ''The worker should know how to select members for the group in relationship to principles of group composition'' (appearing as Item 13 in the inventory).…”

A History of Australian Social Work Practice Research

“…In their analysis of 100 articles published in Australia about social work education between 1983 and 1993, Ryan and Martyn (1996) note that only 10 of these included any empirical data, and none of these involved experimental or longitudinal designs. Indeed, the only experimental study involving the education of Australian social work students during this period was that by Barber (1988), who assessed the value of training social workers in microskills and found that final-year students who had completed intensive training in them were, despite this training, less inclined to consider interviewer responsiveness as important as new (i.e., untrained) students. The findings of this study, which was published in North America, seem to have been ignored by Australian social work educators over the past decade.…”