Abstract
Social policy courses are a staple in social work curricula, particularly in graduate-level social work education. Indeed, policy practice is among the nine social work competencies stipulated by the Council on Social Work Education. The purpose of the present study is to measure the effectiveness of service-learning over traditional-learning methods in obtaining civic and course-learning outcomes. This study utilized a purposive sample of 89 graduate-level social work students enrolled in advanced social policy courses (30 in a service-learning section, and 59 in traditional sections). Employing a quasi-experimental design, this study found that service-learning is associated with better civic and course-learning outcomes. Service-learning may be utilized to enhance policy practice efficacy based on knowledge, skills, values, and competence.
Highlights
Social policy courses are a staple in social work curricula, in graduate-level social work education
Service-learning pedagogy was incorporated into a required Advanced Social Policy course during the spring 2015 semester at Louisiana State University
A unique contribution of the present study is its engagement of students in servicelearning social policy courses that encompassed working directly with community members, campaigning for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) policy and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs in the community, and interacting with macro-level stakeholders
Summary
Social policy courses are a staple in social work curricula, in graduate-level social work education. Policy practice is among the nine social work competencies stipulated by the Council on Social Work Education. This study compared a purposive sample of 89 graduate-level social work students enrolled in advanced social policy courses (30 in a service-learning section, and 59 in traditional sections). Team-based learning (Macke, Taylor, & Taylor, 2013), films (Anderson, Langer, Furman, & Bender, 2005), and tablet computers (Young, 2014) have all been employed to promote student engagement in policy courses. Another promising approach is the use of service-learning methods to engage Master of Social Work (MSW) students in social policy course material
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