Competence units or holistic assessment: The language may be different but the challenges continue

Abstract

When public attention is focused upon the profession of social work, a typical response has been to change initial training and the learning outcomes by which students are assessed. Although social work education has employed competency frameworks for two decades the incompetence discourse and the concern about graduates’ ability to undertake competent social work practice continues. Empirical research problematized the competence phenomenon to explore practice educators’ experiences of using competency units and their perspectives of competence for social work. This paper draws upon findings from that research to explore the concept of holistic assessment and to suggest that educators need to reconsider the epistemological principles of assessment for social work practice.