A Study of Predictors of Success in Health Visiting and Social Work

  • K.A. Hack

    Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

    Abstract

    With expanding courses of training for health visitors
    and social workers, there is an urgent need to investigate the
    predictors of success in these fields.

    The present study was designed:
    (a) to investigate cognitive and non-cognitive test
    differences between health visitor and social work
    students;
    (b) to devise a measure to facilitate the assessment of
    practical work for the two groups; and
    (c) to examine the relationship between a variety of
    predictor measures and theoretical and practical criteria.

    The subjects consisted of 88 health visitor students and
    81 social work students who began their professional courses in
    a college of further education in 1968 or 1969. At the
    beginning of their courses a variety of cognitive and noncognitive
    tests was administered to the students who also
    answered a comprehensive questionnaire.

    Two types of criteria were used. The first was based on
    theoretical course and examination performance while the second
    constituted an assessment of practical work in an agency. The
    health visitors' practical ability was assessed one year after
    completing their training and the social work students were
    rated at the end of their two year course when they had completed
    a six months' agency placement.

    For the health visitors the most effective and
    consistent predictors of the theoretical criterion were a
    reading comprehension test and their school leaving qualifications.
    The practical criterion proved difficult to predict, not one single variable correlating significantly and consistently
    with it.

    For the social workers the validities of the predictor
    variables were generally higher. As with the health visitors,
    the reading comprehension test and school leaving examinations
    effectively predicted the theoretical criterion, but other
    cognitive tests and a questionnaire measure were also
    successful. Ability on the practical criterion was best
    predicted by the measure of persistence.
    Date of Award1971
    Original languageEnglish
    Awarding Institution
    • Aston University

    Keywords

    • predictors of success
    • health visiting
    • social work

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