Service user, carer, practitioner and academic partnership in evaluating decision making in social work students

A practitioner, service user, carer and two academics have been working in a unique partnership over the last two years to evaluate the decision making process of MSc Social Work students at the University of Dundee. As part of the 'Outcomes in Social Work Education' project John Carpenter (2005), this small group has met regularly to develop and share progress of their three evaluation tools: a self efficacy questionnaire which is a development of Jonathan Parker's work on self efficacy questionnaires, and which measures change in students' self confidence in their thinking and decision making skills, a vignette which has been designed to measure change in students' critical and creative thinking based on the work of Joan Orme et al, from an OSWE project, and the use of an NVIVO program to analyse students' written assignments. All members have participated in the practical aspects of the process including the managing of it and have been involved in reviewing literature. This has led to a shared insight and the development of new ideas. The use of the three different research perspectives has allowed for the noting of convergences but also served to ground the process and strengthen the efficacy of the research outcomes, as has the use of the University of Dundee CU (Carer and Service User) Group for reference. All three tools have been developed past the first stage of use and will be available for presentation. In this paper we shall discuss and share through the conference all three tools developed. We shall also consider the benefits and surprises of very different people coming together for research