Reporting assessment data
As of June 2012, the Commission on Accreditation (COA) requires that accredited social work programs must use the following form to report its most recent assessment outcomes to constituents and the public on its website and that it routinely up-dates (minimally every 2 years) these postings.
This also provides an opportunity for prospective students, current students, and alumni to confirm the excellent quality that the EMU social work program provides in theoretical and practical social work knowledge.
Because EMU’s social work program assessment process using the 2008 EPAS is currently underway, the initial data reporting is from the calendar year 2012 rather than the academic year 2012-13. The data will be updated in May 2014 to reflect the 2013-14 academic year.
The internal assessment report presents data gathered via rubric assessment within the social work curriculum courses. In contrast, the external assessment report presents data gathered via a five-point Likert scale completed by practicum supervisors at the end of students’ practicum experiences, which are the culmination of the social work curriculum.
2012 internal assessment report
2012 external assessment report
Furthermore, senior social work students are required to take the Area Concentration Achievement Test (ACAT) in social work, which provides a year-to-year snapshot of social work students’ performance that can be compared to previous EMU students as well as to other social work students around the United States.
10-year comparison of EMU social work student ACAT scores
Finally, field instructors who supervise senior practicum students complete an evaluation of how well EMU’s social work program prepared students for generalist social work practice, which provides an additional way to measure the EMU social work program’s effectiveness in preparing bachelor-level social work students for professional social work practice.
2-year comparison of Field Instructors’ Evaluation of the EMU Social Work Program