Social workers' views on the integrity between theory and practice in social work: A scale development and implementation study

The ultimate goal of social work education, having two main components which are theory and practice, is to train qualified social workers. In order to achieve this goal, it is also very important for social worker candidates to learn how to apply the theoretical knowledge they have learnt during their undergraduate education into practice. Within this framework, the importance of ensuring the integrity of theory and practice in social work education is quite clear. However, the fact that the integrity between theory and practice cannot be fully ensured not only in the field of social work education but also in other fields which have practice in their nature has been seen as an issue of concern by many researchers both in Turkey and in the world. Thus, this study tries to explore the integrity between theory and practice within the framework of social work education according to various variables from social workers' viewpoints. Also, it aims to reflect the factors affecting the integrity between theory and practice negatively within the framework of social work education, and provide suggestions related to the improvement of the integrity between theory and practice. In the relevant national literature review, no scale was encountered in order to explore the integrity between theory and practice within the framework of social work education and therefore, a scale was developed in order to examine the integrity between theory and practice within the framework of social work education according to various variables. In this study implementing a mixed methods research design, the data were collected from 156 social workers working at various institutions and organizations in different regions of Turkey by means of using "The Integrity between Theory and Practice in Social Work Scale" developed by the researcher. In addition, in order to interpret the findings obtained from the quantitative analysis and to provide more effective suggestions, qualitative data were collected from 11 social workers through open-ended questions constructed by the researcher. The quantitative data obtained in this study were analyzed by using the SPSS 25.00 version. Independent sample t test was used for analyzing the variables including educational status, the type of sector social workers work in and the situation related to receiving or not receiving supervision in the professional academic field at the institution where the internship/ block practice was done. In order to analyze the variables such as the presence or the absence of a social worker at the institution where the internship/ block practice was done and the undergraduate program type, Mann Whitney U test was used. Also, the relationship between the total score obtained from the scale and professional experience was analyzed using Spearman correlation analysis. In the analysis of qualitative data, descriptive content analysis was used. As a result of the findings obtained from the scale and the statistical analysis, it was found that there was no significant difference between the total scores obtained from the scale and educational status, the type of undergraduate program, and the presence or absence of a social worker in the institution where the internship / block application was performed whereas there was a significant difference between the total score obtained from the scale and the type of sector social workers work in and the situation related to receiving or not receiving supervision in the professional academic field at the institution where the internship/block practice was done. In addition, it has been determined that the factors affecting the integrity between theory and practice within the frame of social work education are mostly based on the curriculum used in undergraduate education and the faculty members working at the department of social work. In this context, the importance of creating a Turkish social work education model taking into consideration social and contextual factors has been highlighted in the process of the improvement of the integrity between theory and practice in social work education. Also, the necessity of reviewing the weight of theory and applied courses in social work education, spreading locally focused courses, increasing the national resources and meeting the needs regarding teaching staff in the field of social work have been emphasized. Accordingly, the suggestions related to the curriculum and teaching staff in the field of social work may contribute to improving the integrity between theory and practice in social work education.