Assessing Students' 'Readiness for Practice': Field Instructors' Experiences and Perspectives

Abstract

This study aims to explore and understand the ways in which social work field instructors assess ‘readiness for practice’, particularly in situations where a BSW student has experienced a placement breakdown or failure. Through the examination of existing literature, themes of gatekeeping, assessments of readiness, field instructors’ relationships with the academic institutions and tensions between the worlds of social work values and gatekeeping emerged. Rooted in an interpretive methodology and supported by in-person interviews, the study sought the feedback and experiences of five BSW field instructors, with the intention of better understanding the ways in which field instructors assessed ‘readiness for practice’. Emphasizing the use of the term ‘readiness’, the findings suggest that assessing readiness for practice is a multi-layered process. They presented some similarities in the skills and values deemed essential for BSW students to possess to demonstrate readiness and discussed some of the problematic behaviours that contributed towards lack of readiness and placement breakdowns/failures. The findings also discussed the tension that field instructors experience in relation to their mentoring and gatekeeping roles and their desires to see an increase in the collaborative relationships with academic institutions. This study encourages field instructors and Schools of Social Work to critically analyze and explore ways in which they can advance their relationship and work collectively to address issues pertaining to lack of readiness for practice.