scholarly journals Supporting PhD Students to Become Faculty in Gerontological Social Work: AGESW’s Fellowship Program

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 549-549
Author(s):  
Rebecca Mauldin ◽  
James Lubben
Keyword(s):  
Program Evaluation ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Fellowship Program ◽  
Retrospective Survey ◽  
Gerontological Social Work ◽  
Idiographic Approach

Abstract In the United States, the field of social work faces a critical shortage of students and faculty with expertise in gerontology needed to meet the growing needs of an aging society. To help recruit, train, and retain aging-related social work practitioners, researchers, and educators, the Association for Gerontological Education in Social Work (AGESW) created the Pre-Dissertation Fellowship Program in 2010. AGESW provides leadership in the areas of gerontological social work education, research, and policy and its PDFP was designed to support doctoral students in their education and future careers. In this 10th anniversary year of the PDFP, this symposium presents multiple perspectives of PDFP program evaluation. The first paper uses qualitative data from eight years of PDFP evaluations to identify types of professional skills attained through the program and areas of professional development missing from PDFP fellows’ home doctoral programs. The second paper uses quantitative data from a retrospective survey administered to PDFP alumni to describe their perspectives on the effects of the program. The third paper uses data from a retrospective survey of three cohorts of PDFP alumni to demonstrate the use of social network analysis for program evaluation. The fourth and final paper uses an idiographic approach to explain benefits of the PDFP from the perspectives of early stage scholars who participated in the program. Overall, the symposium provides evidence that suggests the effectiveness of the PDFP in building professional networks, mentoring doctoral students, and teaching academic skills and discusses using the PDFP model in other gerontological fields.

Social work doctoral education: Are doctoral students being prepared to teach?

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandy R Maynard ◽  
Elizabeth M Labuzienski ◽  
Kristina S Lind ◽  
Andrew H Berglund ◽  
David L Albright
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Doctoral Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Social Work Practitioners

Summary Longstanding tensions exist around the purpose of social work doctoral programs, particularly around the extent to which doctoral program should prepare their students to teach. Indeed, social work programs in the United States have been criticized for failing to prepare graduates for teaching; however, it has been a number of years since doctoral curricula have been reviewed. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which US social work doctoral programs are training their students to teach by assessing the extent to which pedagogical training is explicitly integrated into doctoral curricula and examining the scope and content of required doctoral courses on teaching. Content analysis of social work doctoral program curricula ( n = 72) and teaching and learning related course syllabi ( n = 24) was conducted by two coders. Syllabi were coded and analyzed to produce a profile of course objectives, readings, teaching strategies, assessment methods, and course content. Findings Of the 72 PhD programs, 90% included a goal related to the preparation of their students for teaching; however, only 37 (51%) required a course on teaching. Course content, teaching, and assessment methods were found to vary across courses. Applications Training the next generation of social work practitioners to engage in effective social work practice is critical to the profession; however, the preparation of doctoral students to provide quality education to future social work practitioners seems to be largely neglected. Implications for doctoral education are discussed.

scholarly journals Turning Doctoral Students into Faculty in Gerontological Social Work: The AGESW Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 828-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Kusmaul ◽  
Stephanie P. Wladkowski ◽  
Sally Hageman ◽  
Allison Gibson ◽  
Rebecca L. Mauldin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Gerontological Social Work

scholarly journals The Impacts of a Mentoring Program on the Development of Gerontological Social Work Faculty

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 549-549
Author(s):  
Nancy Kusmaul ◽  
Stephanie Wladkowski ◽  
Allison Gibson ◽  
Rebecca Mauldin ◽  
Jennifer Greenfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Mentoring Program ◽  
Social Work Faculty ◽  
Gerontological Social Work ◽  
Professional Network ◽  
National Leaders

Abstract The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) have worked to develop gerontological social work faculty to address the needs of older adults. This presentation will discuss the role of AGESW’s Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program in the development of social work doctoral students. All participants from the PDFP’s 2010-2016 cohorts received a 38-question online survey via email exploring the program’s impacts on their academic career in teaching, research, mentoring, and support. Forty-five respondents, representing all six cohorts, completed the survey. More than half said the PDFP contributed to their ability to publish research (64.4%, n = 29), grow their professional network (86.7%, n = 39), and teach (55.5%, n = 25). Doctoral programs provided different experiences: mentoring, methodological training, professional development, and peer support. Results suggest the PDFP supplements students’ doctoral programs by connecting students to each other and to national leaders.

scholarly journals Making it Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-368
Author(s):  
Rebecca G. Mirick ◽  
Stephanie P. Wladkowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Luck ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Parenting Students

While doctoral education is growing in the United States, attrition from doctoral programs is high; 40-60% of students who begin doctoral programs do not complete them. Previous research has explored reasons for attrition, but little research has examined persistence, and none have looked at persistence for women during and after pregnancy. This qualitative study explored female doctoral students and graduates’ (n=28) attributions of persistence to completion in their professional healthcare doctoral programs (57% social work) after a pregnancy and/or birth. Two primary themes emerged from this study. First, women attributed their persistence in the program to internal resources such as determination, organization, discipline, and the ability to assess needs and shift resources, schedules, plans, or expectations to meet those needs. Second, some women attributed their ability to persist in their program to good luck, in terms of fertility, pregnancy timing, expectations of the student, and family friendly advisors and programs. Dissertation chairs and advisors can use these findings to more effectively support pregnant and parenting students, including helping them build important skills and reflect on implicit messages about caregiving women who are doctoral students.

Disrupting hegemony in social work doctoral education and research: Using autoethnography to uncover possibilities for radical transformation

2020 ◽  
pp. 147332502097334
Author(s):  
Austin Gerhard Oswald ◽  
Sarah Bussey ◽  
Monica Thompson ◽  
Anna Ortega-Williams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Research Training ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
Social Work Research

Social work has enhanced its profile in the United States by adopting a particular dialect of scientific inquiry wherein positivism and evidence-based practice are considered gold standards of social work research and practice. This ideological shift permeates doctoral education and research training, as well as social work more broadly. Little attention, however, is paid to the pedagogical approaches used to train doctoral students into a “science of social work,” and we know even less about critical methodologies in doctoral education. This collaborative autoethnography weaves together the personal narratives of three doctoral students and one early career faculty member navigating an academic context within a large public university in the United States. We employ a participatory and intersectional approach to analyze narrative data in terms of how our identities interact with the structures relevant to where we study and work. Three themes emerged from our collaborative analysis: becoming disillusioned by disciplinary shortcoming; confronting dissonance with radical solidarity; and making change on the inside using perspectives from the outside. We argue throughout that critical reflexivity is a tool to document, resist, and transform hegemonic discourse that narrowly defines what it means to embody social work research, practice, and education.

scholarly journals GEO-C: ENABLING OPEN CITIES AND THE OPEN CITY TOOLKIT

2018 ◽  
Vol XLII-4/W8 ◽  
pp. 61-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Granell ◽  
D. Bhattacharya ◽  
S. Casteleyn ◽  
A. Degbelo ◽  
M. Gould ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Doctoral Program ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Data Provenance ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Online Social Media

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The GEO-C doctoral programme, entitled “Geoinformatics: Enabling Open Cities”, is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (International Training Networks (ITN), European Joint Doctorates) until December 2018, and is managed by three European universities in Germany, Portugal and Spain. 15 doctoral grantholders (Early Stage Researchers) were selected to work on specific three-year projects, all contributing to improving the notion of open cities, and specifically to an Open City Toolkit of methodologies, code, and best practice examples. Contributions include volunteered geographic information (VGI), public information displays, mobility apps to encourage green living, providing open data to immigrant populations, reducing the second-order digital divide, sensing of quality of life, proximity based privacy protection, and spatio-temporal online social media analysis. All doctoral students conducted long-term visits and were embedded in city governments and businesses, to gain experience from multiple perspectives in addition to the researcher and users’ perspective. The projects are situated within three areas: transparency, participation, and collaboration. They took mostly a bottom-up (citizen-centric) approach to (smart) open cities, rather than relying on large IT companies to create smart open cities in a top-down manner. This paper discusses the various contributions to enabling open cities, explains in some detail the Open City Toolkit, and its possible uses and impact on stakeholders. A follow-up doctoral program has been solicited and, if successful, will continue this line of research and will strengthen aspects of privacy, data provenance, and trust, in an effort to improve relations between data (e.g. news) publishers and consumers.</p>

scholarly journals The Internationalization of Doctoral Social Work Education: Learning from a Partnership in Ethiopia

10.18060/201 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice K. Johnson Butterfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Doctoral Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
First Semester ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
Work Education

What does it mean to internationalize doctoral education by working abroad? What does it mean to internationalize doctoral education in one’s home country? This article offers a perspective based on the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership, which established Ethiopia’s first-ever master’s degree in social work in 2004. To ensure sustainability of the MSW program, a doctoral program in Social Work and Social Development was launched in 2006. This article describes the development and research base of the doctoral program. Beginning in the first semester, teams of doctoral students join with poor communities in action research.Overall, these efforts lead to an emerging model of university-based development. Through engaged action research, faculty and students use human capital resources and the educational process to function as “development actors.” Some ideas for internationalizing doctoral education are offered. Deans and directors in the United States and Canada are challenged to expand doctoral education within a developing country and to prepare doctoral students to include international perspectives in their teaching and research.

Preparing BSW Students for Competency With Older Adults

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. S-73-S-91
Author(s):  
Susan Allen ◽  
Michele Kelly ◽  
Latoya Brooks ◽  
Marie Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Matched Pairs ◽  
State University ◽  
Rank Tests ◽  
Gerontological Social Work ◽  
Signed Rank

As the population of older adults in the United States grows, there is an increasing need for social workers to serve this group. This study examines the effects of a gerontological social work curriculum infusion project for baccalaureate social work students at a southeastern state university that was funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation. Attitudes regarding interest in gerontology and perceived competency in gerontology- related skills were assessed pre- and postintervention. Nonparametric Wilcoxon matched- pairs signed rank tests revealed significant increases in interest in pursuing further gerontology- related experience and related competencies. Open- ended reflection comments were analyzed to further understand the students’ experience with the program. Results indicate that infusion of gerontological concepts into the curriculum increased the number of students interested in pursuing careers in gerontology, increased students’ competency with this population, and enhanced their understanding of the unique needs of older adults.

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