AN INTEGRATED SKILLS LABORATORY

AN INTEGRATED SKILLS LABORATORYAuthor(s): William RoweSource: Canadian Social Work Review / Revue canadienne de service social, Vol. 1 ('83), pp. 161-169Published by: Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41669090 .

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Review '83 161

AN INTEGRATED SKILLS

LABORATORY

William Rowe

In SOCIAL WORK , the interpersonal skills of empathy, non-possessive warmth and genuineness have been seen most often as innate abilities to be developed, rather than teachable skills. Educators like Reynolds and To wie wrote extensively on the development of clinical competence in social work.1 They recognized interpersonal competence as central to clinical competence and saw the supervisory process and case presentations as the preferred vehicle for the teaching and development of these competencies. This approach has been widely utilized in social work education, but there has been little scientific study initiated with regard to its utility or effectiveness.

In recent years, the utility and effectiveness of traditional field instruction or practicum training has been re-evaluated.2 It is suggested that traditional models of field instruction, whereby students intern at an agency or institution under the guidance of a supervisor, may be of limited educational value. Rothman claimed that "application" learning must be as much the responsibility of the school of social work as it is the agency and supervisor if integration between theory and practice is to occur.3

Many models of field instruction have been offered to facilitate the integration of theory and practice for the student. Approaches such as faculty-based field instructors, or agency-based educational units have been attempted. Another alternative recommended by Burian has been the use of an on-campus laboratory experience.

As an on-campus facility the laboratory provides the social work educator the opportunity to provide student skill training and practice under controlled conditions, directly related to classroom content and direct practice. It is particularly applicable to the development of basic or group process skills, but could be used to demonstrate and practice more advanced skills as well.4

Résumé En réponse aux inquiétudes exprimées à l'égard de la compétence et de la

responsabilité des travailleurs sociaux, un certain nombre d'éducateurs en service social ont offert des cours spécialisés en techniques interpersonnelles dans quelques écoles de service social. Des études ont montré que les étudiants suivant ces cours obtiennent des notes de beaucoup supérieures en ce qui a trait aux mesures de techniques interpersonnelles (empathie, cordialité non possessive et franchise) que les étudiants suivant les cours traditionnels et (ou) les stages. Ces résultats peuvent se reproduire, mais ces méthodes



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Rothman also recommended that "specific baseline skills be acquired through a laboratory experience established in conjunction with the methods courses."5 The laboratory here is seen as a conceptual and practical bridge between the classroom and the field. It is not meant to be a replacement for either.

Most social work education programs have continued with the traditional approach to training for clinical competence, although some have experimented with the laboratory approach. In the early 1970s a few researchers introduced interpersonal skills laboratories based on specific training in the core conditions as an addition or alternative to traditional training approaches.6

These training approaches appeared to have positive results with social work students and further studies have essentially supported the original findings.7 While the results appear consistent, the training approaches are still not widely utilized. Some of the criticism and resultant reticence appears directed at the behaviour-specific nature of many of the training approaches. Partially in response to this concern Corcoran compared a behavioural and non-behavioural approach to developing empathy in social work students and found significant improvements in both groups.8 In addition, Rowe compared a behaviour-specific and a learner-specific laboratory approach and found that both methods produced significant improvements on measures of interviewing skills.9

The behaviour-specific laboratory was based on an adapted version of Carkhuff's Systematic Human Relations Training Model, where the teaching and learning experiences were highly structured and the unit of attention was facilitative communication.10 The learner-specific laboratory was less structured and insight-oriented and the teaching and learning material as derived from student presentations rather than a prescribed program.

Since the two approaches in Rowe's study appeared to provide related and supplementary forms of learning for students, it was

d'enseignement ne sont guère répandues. Il est possible que les éducateurs aient trouvé inacceptable la nature spécifique du comportement unidimensionnel de la plupart des laboratoires d'instruction.

Cette étude compare une approche pratique intégrée à une approche centrée sur le comportement et à une approche centrée sur le stagiaire - laboratoire. On a adopté des mesures avant et après l'apprentissage qu'on a imposées à trois classes (141 étudiants) sur une période de trois ans. Les trois classes ont manifesté après les cours une amélioration sensible au point de vue statistique. Les deux classes ayant suivi les exercices de laboratoire de techniques intégrées ont manifesté des améliorations beaucoup plus prononcées que les étudiants exposés aux autres méthodes de laboratoire. Le laboratoire de techniques intégrées a semblé permettre aux étudiants de doubler leurs résultats. Nous croyons que le laboratoire des techniques intégrées pourrait constituer une orientation plus acceptable des programmes d'étude de premier cycle.



Review '83 163

recommended that an integration of the two approaches be attempted and studied. It was recognized that an integration of teaching approaches might provide a more acceptable and effective laboratory alternative for the teaching of baseline or fundamental interpersonal skills.

An Integrated Skills Laboratory The following is a description of the integrated training approach.

The original learner-specific and behaviour-specific approaches remain relatively distinct and identifiable as separate learning blocks or units. The integrative aspects are seen in the acceptance of both approaches as important and meaningful and the addition of a third section that integrates the first two. Laboratory features such as small group, use of video-tape feedback and attention to the development of skill or competence has remained constant.

The laboratory takes place over one semester or approximately twelve, two-hour sessions. The groups are kept to approximately twelve students to maximize the benefit of the small-group learning experience. In the first session, the students are introduced to the logistics of the laboratory and a brief presentation about interviewing in social work is made.11 Students are requested to make a twenty-minute video-tape of a simulated helping interview. Also in the first session, students are pre-tested on Carkhuffs Discrimination Index.12 The index is incorporated to provide a controlled measure of each student's progress over the course of the laboratory.

Next, students preview their tapes and formulate a list of what they consider to be helping and hindering characteristics of their particular interviewing style. In sessions 2 to 4, students play their tapes and share their analyses with their training group. The laboratory leader facilitates the group so as to provide commentary, reinforcement and collégial exchange for the presenter. It is important that the student recognize his or her innate helping characteristics as a base on which to build further interviewing skill.13 It is equally important that the group atmosphere be one of mutuality and support to help establish the learner-specific aspect of skill acquisition.14

In sessions 5 through 7 the teaching/learning experiences are markedly different from sessions two through four. Here the students are introduced to the theoretical helping characteristics of empathy, non-possessive warmth and genuineness. One session is devoted to each of the core conditions. The concept is explicated didactically and operational definitions and measurements are clarified. The students then take turns role-playing the different levels of responding and rating their communications. During this sequence the laboratory leaders help the students to appreciate the theoretical helping characteristics as an addition to, rather than a replacement for, their personal helping characteristics. At the end of session 7, students are instructed to produce a second video-tape of a role-played interview where they attempt to integrate their personal helping characteristics with the



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theoretical helping characteristics. By and large, this section follows guidelines established for competency-based evaluation approaches.15

In sessions 8 through 10 the students once again present their video- tapes to their laboratory group. In addition to receiving further feedback about both their personal and theoretical helping characteristics, the students develop a list of short, intermediate and long-term learning goals regarding their interviewing skill development. The goals and the means of achieving them are documented and become useful for establishing a learning contract in the practicum experience, thus bridging classroom learning with field learning.

In the final session, individual evaluations of the learning goals are given and the students are administered the Discrimination Index post- test. Both pre-test and post-test are scored and the students receive an objective measure of their skill development. Finally, the learning experiences in the laboratory are summarized and discussed and options for continued development and training are shared.

Comparison of Approaches In the original study, a learner-specific and a behaviour-specific

laboratory approach were compared and both were found to be effective training approaches. In the present study, an integrated laboratory approach (utilizing a combination of both approaches) was compared with the approaches in the original study to assess if there was greater improvement with the integrated teaching approach. Two hypotheses were developed for testing. First, that students receiving laboratory training would improve on a skills measure and second that students receiving the integrated laboratory approach would improve more.

All three laboratory approaches had similar structural conditions to form a basis for comparison. For example, they all took place over one semester with weekly sessions of two hours. All participants video- taped and reviewed the same number of role-played interviews. Finally all laboratory approaches utilized the small group format for teaching and learning.

Data were collected over three academic years. The sample consisted of 141 entry level B.S. W. students. Class A (n = 52) received either the learner-specific (two groups) or the behaviour-specific (three groups) laboratory approach. Class B (n = 42) and Class C (n = 47) both received the integrated laboratory approach. There were thirteen different laboratory training groups with thirteen different trainers. The trainers were field instructors hired to be laboratory leaders. Even though they had a variety of theoretical affiliations and practice experiences, they were well versed in their particular laboratory approach prior to training. Since it was important to assess the laboratory approach rather than any individual's teaching acumen, the use of different trainers was appropriate.

Assessments of students' skill level were made via Carkhuff's



Review '83 165

Discrimination Index. Carkhuff and others postulated that the ability to discriminate effective worker responses would be an important dimension of a potential helper. The ability to discriminate effective worker responses is not clearly predictive of skill and effectiveness in interviewing, but it does appear to be a necessary, while not sufficient, dimension of ability in communicating high levels of the core conditions, which have been linked with skill and effectiveness in interviewing. In addition, studies have demonstrated a significant correlation between scores on the Discrimination Index and scores on the Communication Index.16 Carkhuff's Communication Index is a measure of a respondent's ability to articulate facilitative responses.

The Discrimination Index makes use of client vignettes that are played in an audio-tape and appear in text before the respondent. The respondent is provided with five worker responses and asked to rate them on a scale that is also provided. Scores are determined by measuring the absolute deviation of the respondent ratings from the consensus ratings of experts who have demonstrated predictive validity in previous outcome studies. Carkhuff has hypothesized that any overall score of .5 or less can be considered approaching agreement with the experts' ratings.

All students were administered the pre-test and post-test. No scores or feedback were given to the students until both tests had been completed. This particular feature was built in to control for the contamination effects of measurement. A preferable teaching approach might be to review the pre-test results to enable students to specifically improve on those portions of the test where they performed poorly.

Findings The first hypothesis, that students receiving laboratory training

would improve on the performance criterion, was supported. In all three classes, these improvements were statistically significant. As shown in Table 1, the difference between the pre-test mean (.79) and the post-test mean (.69) for class A represented a significant improvement [t (51) = 3.25, p < .01]. The same is true for the pre-test mean (.81) and post-test mean (.61) of class B [t (41) = 5.59, p < .001] and the pre-test mean (.70) and post-test mean (.51) of class C [t (46) = 4.64, p < .001].

The second hypothesis, that students receiving the integrated laboratory apporach would improve more than the others, was also supported. As shown in Table 2, the mean change score (improvement) for class B and C together is .19, and for class A is .10. The difference between these means was significant t = (118) = 2.22, p < .05]. Neither the comparison of class C with combined class A and B [t =(80) = .87, p = .389] nor class B with combined class A and C [t (84) = 1.34, p = .184] showed any significant differences.

In Table 3, the number and percentage of students who registered



166 Revue '83

negative achievement on the performance criterion are shown. Students who started in the expert range and remained there after training are not included in this grouping. (When a student is already performing at an expert level, no change is still considered positive.) The percentage of students that registered negative achievement in Class B (4.7%) and Class C (6.3%) was dramatically lower than those in Class A (30.7%). In addition the percentage of students registering positive change in Class B (88. 1%) and Class C (72.3%) was higher than those in Class A (59.6%).

TABLE 1 MEAN, STANDARD DEVIATION AND t VALUES OF CLASS A, B, C,

ON PRE TEST AND POST-TESTS MEASURES

GROUP NUMBER PRE TEST POST-TEST t VALUE Mean SD Mean SD

Class A 52 .79 .25 .69 .24 3.25* Class B 42 .81 .39 .61 .39 5.59** Class C 47 .70 .38 .51 .31 4.64*** * p< .01 ** p < .001 *** p < .001

TABLE 2 MEAN CHANGE SCORES, STANDARD DEVIATION AND t VALUES

FOR EACH CLASS COMPARED WITH THE OTHER TWO

GROUP NUMBER Mean (fi) (SD) (a) t VALUE Change Score

Class A 52 .10 .22 Class B and C 89 .19 .25 2'22*

* P < .05

GROUP NUMBER Mean (jti) (SD) (a) t VALUE Change Score

Class B 42 .19 .23 1 CM Class A and C 99 .13 .24

GROUP NUMBER Mean (fi) (SD) (a) t VALUE Change - Score

Class C 47 .18 .27 Class A & B 94 ^23 87



Review '83 167

TABLE 3 NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS

SHOWING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CHANGE

GROUP CHANGE < O CHANGE > O Ñ PER CENT Ñ PER CENT

Class A 17 30.7 28 59.6 Class B 2 4.7 37 88.2 Class C 3 6.3 34 72.3

Discussion The findings have reaffirmed previous claims as to the efficacy of

laboratory training for interpersonal skills. As well, it has been demonstrated that students receiving a training approach that integrates a learner-specific approach with a behaviour-specific approach register improvements that are almost double that of either approach by itself.

The findings must be viewed with caution since the present study has some clear limitations. For example, some studies have shown improvement on the Discrimination Index even without laboratory training.17 The improvement has not been as consistent and significant, however, as that demonstrated by students receiving the training. The performance criterion, while offering an economical and efficient means of assessing students and their achievement, is not a precise instrument and is not necessarily predictive of success or skill in the field. Also the measures in this study were taken immediately following laboratory training. While one study demonstrated retention of learning of a four-month follow-up measure,18 a more important measure might be the degree to which the learning is retained in practice over time.

Even in light of the limitations, the findings are important for social work education because an integrated training approach may prove to be more acceptable to social work educators generally. This could result in more educators incorporating the laboratory training methods into their curricula. This is seen as positive because the laboratories have proven valuable beyond their original conceptualization. In addition to bridging the gap between classroom and field, the laboratories demonstrate the utility and merit of more objective evaluations of performance. As such, the laboratory provides a model for measuring both worker and client performance in helping.

In the laboratory described in this study, field instructors from the practicum program were hired as laboratory leaders. This has had the secondary effect of developing greater congruence between teaching/learning experiences in the school and teaching/learning experiences in the agencies. The laboratory is not intended to replace traditional field supervision which is an experience that has important



168 Revue '83

learning dimensions of its own. Rather, it provides a basis from which some aspects of field learning can grow.

Most of the studies to date have only been concerned with basic or core interviewing skills. It is important to formulate laboratory experiences and performance measures for intermediate and advanced interviewing skills as well as for skills in group facilitation and family interviewing. It is conceivable that a laboratory sequence that incorporates skill development and evaluation could be established for each of the practice courses in the social work curriculum.

Summary Historically, the major skills training ground for social work students

has been the practicum or field work experience. Katz noted that "students have been expected to learn interviewing skills by trial-and- error interactions with clients and after-the-fact supervision."19 In recent years, increased concerns regarding accountability, worker effectiveness and practice standards have brought this learning approach into question. Rothman, in discussing the development of the social work profession, stated the following:

For a century we have debated, discoursed, experimented and observed. I hope we have reached that point where we recognize that our professional schools must assume a greater responsibility for the skills competency of our students.20

The integrated skills laboratory described in this paper is one step toward assuming the responsibility referred to by Rothman. The laboratory in its current formulation has repeatedly demonstrated improvement on skills measures for the participants. This approach appears to have captured the valuable aspects of both the learner- specific and behaviour-specific approaches to skills training. This approach has also tended to produce students who feel confident about themselves, competent in terms of beginning interviewing skill and open to and eager for increased skill development.

Training for the professions has come under increased demands for relevance, effectiveness and integrity. The integrated skills approach offers one such training program for beginning social workers.

William Rowe is an associate professor of social work at King's College , University of Western Ontario , in London.



Review '83 169

REFERENCES

1 Towle, C. The Learner in Education for the Professions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. Reynolds, B., Learning and Teaching in Social Work, New Vork: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942.

2 Katz, D., "Laboratory training to enhance interviewing skills," in M. Arkava and F. Clark (Eds.) The Pursuit of Competence in Social Work, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pub., 1979. 3 Rothman, J. "Development of a profession: Field instruction correlates," Social Service Review, 1977, 51, 289-310. 4 Burian, W., "The Laboratory as an element in social work curriculum design," Journal of Education for Social Work, 1976, 12, p. 40. 5 Rothman, p. 306. 6 Fischer, J., "Training for effective therapeutic practice," Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 1975, 12, 118-123. 7 Larsen, J. & Hepworth, D.H., "Skill Development through competency-based education." Journal of Education for Social Work, 1978, 14, 73-81. 8 Corcoran, K., "Behavioral and Nonbehavioral Methods of Developing Two Types of Empathy: A Comparative Study," Journal of Education for Social Work, 1982 18, #2, 85-93.

9 Rowe, W., "Laboratory Training in the Baccalaureate Curriculum," Canadian Journal of Social Work Education, 1981, 7, #3, 93-104. 10 Carkhuff, R.R., Counselor-Counselee Handbook, Amherst, Mass.: Human Relations Development Press, 1976. See also: Carkhuff, R.R., Helping and Human Relations, Vol. 2, Practice and Research. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1969.

11 Kadushin, A., Social Work Interview, New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. 12 Carkhuff, 1976. 13 Towle, 1954. 14 Abels, P., "Group supervision of students and staff," Supervision Consultation and

Staff Training in the Helping Professions, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pub., 1978. 15 McLean, A. (Ed.), Competency-Based Perspectives in Baccalaureate Social Work Education, Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors: Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1980.

16 Wallman, G. "The Impact of the First Year of Social Work Education on Student Skill in Communication of Empathy and Discrimination of Effective Responses," Doctoral Dissertation, Adelphi University, 1980.

17 Ibid. 18 Rowe, 1981. 19 Katz, p. 105. 20 Rothman, p. 289.



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AN INTEGRATED SKILLS LABORATORY