The development of online program options in higher education has prompted the discussion of how well the modality fits the nature of social work education and the Council on Social Work Accreditation (CSWE) educational standards. To examine the relationship between online education and social work education, this research study focused on…

Institutions of higher education are encountering shifting trends in student enrollment and must embrace interdisciplinary approaches to address student recruitment and retention. This study explores reasons why students choose to leave an online MSW program. Data were collected through telephone interviews with students leaving the program during…

Online/virtual educators face challenges related not only to technology and pedagogy, but also to student assessment, which remains a critical function to reinforce. Brief assessment tools can be used by the instructor to tailor the learning experience, and where appropriate, to reinforce student-centered learning. In this qualitative study, we…

Research in distance education has investigated student satisfaction and learning outcomes, comparing face-to-face with online delivery formats, and tested various technological tools, but has yet to consider alternative pedagogies. Liberatory pedagogy facilitates critical thinking, awareness, reflection and social action around constructs such as…

Purpose: The paper reports the feedback collected from students of the Master of Social Work (MSW) Programme of the School of Social Work (SOSW), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), through open and distance learning (ODL), in India. The paper discusses findings related to learner profile, student support services, assignments,…

Social work education has been greatly affected by ongoing technological advances in society at large and in the academy. Options for instructional delivery have been broadened tremendously. The University of Louisville is the first in Kentucky to put its master's of social work degree fully online, with a first cohort admitted in 2012. The…

This study served to investigate how information literacy instruction can alleviate information anxiety in online learners. While there has been much research to demonstrate that hands-on or activity-based learning is beneficial in reducing library anxiety, those studies have not been conducted for the online classroom. Using a required,…

This article describes one school of social work's innovative online elective course to prepare Masters of Social Work (MSW) students for practice with the military, veterans and their families. Developed as part of a university-wide Veterans Initiative, this online course keeps the focus on the student veteran and uses the best practices of…

This article describes an evaluation of the first skills-based clinical course taught in a Council on Social Work Education-accredited, entirely online, MSW program. Students in the online course answered retrospective pretest and posttest questions regarding change in their clinical skills. Researchers compared online students' responses to a…