Quantifying creative encounters: Part two

Abstract

A post-qualifying course in psychodynamic approaches to practice used a competence approach to evaluation of course and training outcomes. The first phase of the evaluation was reported in Journal of Social Work Practice (1993, 7(1), pp. 63-72). The second evaluation phase focused on 14 'core' competences identified by expert practitioners as being central both to psychodynamic practice and to analysis of training outcomes. Four ratings of confidence by students and three ratings of skill by tutors were completed each year, for four years. Sixty-four students, 41 of whom were social workers, were assessed this way. The resulting data were highly variable for both students and tutors, although the trend towards improvement in skill and confidence was clear, most markedly over the final phase of the course. While this suggested the overall effectiveness of the course, factor analysis failed to identify any more specific discrimination of skill components. More evident were global judgements of competence, by tutors in particular. As with other competence-based training programmes, comparing assessments of competence with actual therapeutic outcomes might advance the identification and evaluation of practitioner competence.