Facilitating Practice Learning and Assessment: The Influence of Relationship

The Inside Story: A Survey of Social Work Students' Supervision and Learning Opportunities on Placement

“…When there is no qualified practice teacher in a setting, a long-arm practice and an on-site supervisor share the tasks. The on-site supervisor is largely responsible for placement management, case supervision and formative feedback, and the 'long-arm', 'offsite' or 'external supervisor' is primarily accountable for reflective learning, direct teaching and assessment (Lefevre, 2005). Social workers are recruited and trained to undertake these roles and can supervise several students at a time which can help to address the shortage of placements and alleviate some of the pressures on agency social workers.…”

“…Bogo (2006) concluded that students valued their relationship with their supervisor, particularly when they received critical feedback about their practice as well as opportunities to observe practitioners and to have their work observed. Lefevre (2005) conducted a small study into student perceptions of the significance of the supervision on their learning and reported that students referred to the importance of certain tasks carried out by the practice teacher, such as their knowledge, skills and experience in direct teaching, organization/management of the placement and promoting the student's self-reflection on values and personal experience. The practice teacher's ability to identify and link theory to practice appeared particularly important with some students demonstrating frustration that the practice teacher did not demonstrate adequate levels of these skills and abilities.…”

“…The literature overwhelmingly reports that the role of these practice teachers remain central to student learning (Bogo, 2006;Lefevre, 2005) as well their exposure to a range of appropriate learning and assessment tasks (Furness and Gilligan, 2004). At the same time, changes in the health and welfare field have resulted in increased caseloads and higher acuity cases for social workers which has undermined their ability to the required level of supervision for students .…”

When Failing doesn’t Matter: A Narrative Inquiry into the Social Work Practice Learning Experiences of Black African Students in England

“…A small-scale study by Lefevre (2005) revealed that students viewed the lack of support from their PEs as resulting in the poor relationship between them and their PE, which impacted on their overall experiences of their practice learning. The tone, pitch and pronunciation of words by people for whom English is an additional language is, according to Harrison (2012) regularly subjected to evaluation by native speakers of English.…”

'My Expectations Remain the Same. The Student Has to Be Competent to Practise': Practice Assessor Perspectives on the New Social Work Degree Qualification in England

“…Other studies have looked at students' satisfaction with practice learning (Barron, 2004) or its effects in developing their perceptions of competence (Parker, 2006). Concerns have been expressed about the potential for students to be oppressed because they are in positions of structural subordination (Cowburn et al, 2000) and the relationship between student and assessor has been shown to be a crucial factor in the quality of the practice learning environment (Lefevre, 2005).…”