Learning about social work research through field placements as a stepping stone to a career in academia

ABSTRACT

Field placement is a milestone in every student’s journey towards degree completion. The experience influences career choices, professional identities and emergent practices in the dynamic social work field. While there is a growing body of knowledge regarding this development, as well as research-as-placement for students, there remains a paucity of documentation on what this experience is like, especially regarding the outcomes for students post-placement. To address the gap our team of authors offer a reflective and reflexive autoethnographic account of our experiences as social work students (and supervisor) undertaking research field placements. Our aim is to offer readers a critical perspective of research-as-placement that highlights the potential to enhance academic aspirations post-placement. We promote the benefits for students when supervised/mentored by a social work academic, particularly the personal and professional opportunities that come from the experience that help students locate placement success, research skills development and an academic career pathway. A key finding is the need for further research regarding the experience of students requiring ready-made skills in self-directed and self-paced learning. Ultimately, through this work we propose that research-as-placement creates avenues to build symbolic and social capital in the lives of students and ultimately enrich their social work education.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic careers
• research placements
• social work research
• field education
• field placements

Introduction

In social work, field placements are often referred to as a ‘signature pedagogy’ (Ledger et al., 2017; Lyter, 2012; Wayne et al., 2010). Placements provide the opportunity for students to integrate theory and practice in a safe learning environment, and to develop skills, knowledge, values and use of self that will prepare them for a professional career in social work. What is important to consider however, is whether the learning environment and the professional development opportunities offered in university-based research placements are qualitatively different to a standard field placement in a social work agency.

We, the authors of this article, are five former social work students who chose to undertake research-based placements at our Australian university, and one Social Work Academic who has supervised many research-based field placements. This critical auto-ethnographic writing project has come about because we have all pursued further steps in researching and working in academia. This article is a collaborative synthesis of the themes of students’ and supervisor’s experiences, as we investigated the question posed about the influence of social work research as social work field placements, and the influence of such placements on academic aspirations.

Context of research and placement learning

The topic area of this article cuts across multiple layers of emerging knowledge, including how social work students understand and learn about research as a practice in social work; how research is incorporated into field placements and whether it is prioritised as a key social work practice skill; how students are prepared for collaborating with agencies in the sector through research; and how field placements contribute to social work students’ preparation for preferred careers.

The perception of research as social work practice is not without difficulty. Academics such as Hall (2015) and Morgenshtern et al. (2015) report that social work students often come to research reluctantly, largely due to misconceptions about its relevance and application. It is not a surprise, then, that student reaction to undertaking a research placement should also be mixed. Previous literature explores the following factors in this experience.

While Hall (2015) points to alternative methods of student learning about research through, for example, academic conferences, the field placement can also be seen as a clear opportunity for developing research skills that will be useful in a professional practice setting. Thomas et al. (2016) point out that students’ involvement in academic-led research value-adds to both education and preparation for practice. The research opportunities they report on, however, were concurrent with field placements and not actually part of them. Morley and Clarke (2020) outline the value of research placements supervised by academics in preparing students for practice, as they emphasise ‘applied research, with the goal of assisting students to recognize research as an essential practice that can catalyse change and advance the goals of building a more sustainable, socially just, and democratic world’ (Morley & Clarke, 2020, p. 1053). Similarly, Hewson et al. (2010) further identify optimum conditions for learning in research-based placements through the integration of theory, method and practice; catching the academic’s passion; and connecting students with community-based agencies. Chakradhar (2018) further elaborates on community partnerships as a means of overcoming students’ reluctance about research, culminating in reciprocal benefit for workforce preparation, evidence-building and empowering the sector as they operate in challenging socio-political environments. The placements we undertook were both academic-led and in collaboration with agencies external to the university.

There is still very little literature that discusses placements as part of progression to further academic engagement, nor that embraces co-authorship of former students and academics. Student perspectives have been explored in some joint authorships although they have largely been drawn from reflections on more typical field education experiences rather than a research placement. Hearn et al. (2014) prioritise students’ experience and the student/supervisor relationship. They emphasise, as do others (e.g. Lam et al., 2006; Noble, 2001; Williamson et al., 2010) the crucial role of praxis, which is relevant to any placement type and also sits at the core of autoethnographic research. Williamson et al. (2010) and Lam et al. (2006)) also identify rightly that placements are a site for developing sense of self as an emerging social worker. For us, the sense of self as a social work practitioner was largely already resolved with many of the authors having had significant sector and/or life experience before becoming students, or while they completed their degrees. A more interesting discovery by Lam et al. (2006)) was that disturbing events became a catalyst for learning. In the placements we undertook, it is fair to say that, while some plans were disrupted or frustrated, research—even engaged research—did not contain emotionally disturbing experiences that could generate a similar heightened sense of learning.

Further, there is some recent history of academics and students collaborating in the writing process with a critical autoethnographic framework. For example, Lynch and Kuntz (2019), in the physical education discipline, highlight the role of risk-taking. McKnight and O’Mara (2017), researching teacher gender identity, chart the development of curriculum through ideological discovery. It could be argued that this may equate to ‘sense of self’ but examples of this kind of writing have not been at the forefront of social work enquiry. When it has, it has mostly been associated with doctoral study rather than placements, although some points are still applicable. For example, Turner and Crane (2016) assert that learning is maximised in the transition from coursework to grounded and engaged research experience. Turner et al. (2017) also point to the value of group dialogue to tease out even richer learning, and the minimisation of power differences in the learning relationship as knowledge is co-created. We see co-authoring within this auto-ethnographic framework as an important recognition of the shared placement experience, as it underpins the co-construction of new knowledge in the social work arena.

Lu et al. (2019) insist that, in the United States at least, social workers are aspiring to doctoral study in increasing numbers. There has not—as far as we have been able to ascertain across other countries including Australia—an application of either our framework, partnership or reflexive technique as it applies to research-oriented field placements providing a pathway into academia. It is in this gap that our paper is located, addressing the need for acknowledging the collaborative learning experience and therefore giving possibility to the academic world as a potential social work career.

Method

Under a broad critical social work framework (Allan et al., 2009) that embraces inclusion, self-determination, empowerment, a collectivist perspective and critical reflection, and a qualitative, narrative methodological base, we have adopted for this article an approach drawn from critical autoethnography. Holman Jones (2016) identified that autoethnography is based on personal, concrete stories, and that the critical dimension indicates that, because theory is not static, we are immersed in a process that connects ‘concrete and abstract, thinking and acting, aesthetics and criticism’ (p. 228) to become living bodies of thought that Lynch and Kuntz (2019) describe as a ‘transformative learning journey’ (p. 156). Further, according to Reed-Danahay (2017), this process allows personal experience to become academically strategic, particularly in co-construction of knowledge.

In the co-construction of knowledge, one of the important points to note is that we are all at different career stages. The supervisor is an academic of 25 years. The students came to their social work studies, and hence their field placement, with diverse prior experience according to schooling, work experience in the sector, overseas study, culture, gender and age. The research experience about which we are writing was conducted in both first and final field placements, at Bachelor and Qualifying Masters level, between eighteen months and six years ago. Four were final placements of 600 hours while one was the first placement of 400 hours. They were predominantly focused on undertaking research projects being conducted in partnership with external social work services. These research projects, while diverse in purpose, methodology, delivery, and outcomes, were clear examples of a co-constructed praxis (which is as Freire (1970) might purport: an idea in action), wherein knowledge development, knowledge sharing, knowledge retention, and knowledge-in-practice of social work research was a shared and co-constructed experience between primarily the students and supervisor, but also with the agencies, clients, stakeholders, and research participants. The authors have now all graduated from their social work degrees, but capture added diversity in their research trajectory. This group of authors covered a spectrum of pathways including undergraduate Honours, Master of Research (MRes), Master of Philosophy (MPhil), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and assessable work-based equivalence. In terms of higher degree research, two have already completed their doctorate (one of whom has secured a social work lecturer position), one is a doctoral candidate, and two are in the process of applying for PhD entry. With all of the students having already had some research assistant and tutoring work, and the senior academic bringing added experience, it is fair to say, as Holman Jones (2016) points out, that we are living that about which we are writing. For this reason, the reflexive process was an important part of the synthesis of ideas.

This process was best captured through reflective journals as a technique applied after the completion of the field placement experience. The use of journals, completed retrospectively, has been established as an appropriate technique for collating and analysing experiences, opinions and personal narratives, and is recognised as sitting within the broader range of autoethnographic techniques (Lynch & Kuntz, 2019; Wood, 2017) This process of synthesising our own reflections within a critical autoethnographic framework provided a rationale for not requiring ethics clearance. To ensure due diligence, we did seek the advice of the University’s ethics officer and the Social Work Discipline Lead, who had previously published using the same approach. Both agreed that a formal ethics application was unnecessary. The journals began with five key questions:

1. What did you do in your research placement?

2. What research skills did you learn in placement? Did it influence your understanding of social work research?

3. How was the research placement instrumental to pursuing a social work research career?

4. What challenges did you encounter during your placement?

5. Please highlight any other reflections.

While there were many areas of commonality, each individual set of answers also provided unique foci. A thematic analysis was then applied to the reflective journals. Braun and Clarke (2019, 2021) argue that their original six-phase process of thematic analysis was never intended to be procedural and have since adopted the term reflexive thematic analysis. Our analysis process developed over time, moving forward and backwards between the entire data set (the reflective journals), the coded extracts, and the development of a visual mind map, resulting in the finalisation of three key themes. The themes were:

1. Research as field placement increases interest in an academic career

2. The role of supervision in social work research placements is key to success

3. There is tension in gaining experience through self-directed and self-initiated research as a field placement opportunity

Findings and discussion

The findings from our thematic analysis stem from reflective journals based on five key questions listed above, and are presented below in three key themes. Each of the themes are defined and illustrated with direct quotes from the authors’ written reflections and are explored further by identifying sub-themes and relevant examples. The overarching notion of field placements in social work research is explored and considered throughout these themes and sub-themes, with implications of thematic exploration and dynamic co-constructed experience.

Theme 1: research as field placement increases interest in an academic career

Research placements can be instrumental in enhancing student’s interest of pursuing research as a future career focus. Our team identified this as a key theme emerging from our group’s reflective writing that has three distinct sub themes: a) Students developed a deeper understanding of research as a practice in social justice work at macro and micro levels; b) Students obtained transferable social work skills through learning how to execute social work research projects; and c) Students were provided with opportunities to tailor ongoing higher degree research.

1. Students developed a deeper understanding of research as a practice in social justice work at macro and micro levels

From our analysis it emerged that students in research placements gain a greater understanding of the purpose of research as a practice in social work across macro and micro levels for vulnerable and marginalised cohorts of community. With direct-practice social work settings in hospitals, department of communities and justice, and non-government community agencies remaining dominant settings for Australian-based field placement in the social work discipline, there is little opportunity for students to experience how social workers can affect change at macro and micro levels through the research process. The social work research placement works to fill this gap by offering an immersion in a real-life research project. As the following note reflects:

I learned that social work research is about conducting research that seeks to raise and represent the voices of those who are silent. Once, I started research placement, I became more familiar with core social work research element—embodying social justice within the research design/framework. The idea of social justice within the social work research differentiates it from other social science research. Opportunity to incorporate aspects of social justice within the research augmented my interest towards social work research.

Social workers, educators and academics using a social justice lens are continually challenged to critically reflect on what has informed their practice and to understand others, for example, clients,’ students,’ or their colleagues’ lived experiences. I am looking forward to undertaking more social work research based on the valuable skills I learnt in my final student placement.

These placements were, therefore, crucial in imbuing students with skills to integrate elements of empowerment and social justice in the research framework.

(b) Students obtained transferable social work skills through learning how to execute social research projects

Several members of our group reflected that immersion in social work research advances the development of transferable skills commonly required in the social work profession. Multiple reflections suggested that research placements help to create better social work practitioners through the development of interviewing skills (conducting semi-structured interviews and focus groups); practice in critical reflection and analytical skills (engaging with various theoretical methodologies, standpoints and perspectives); opportunities for networking and relationship building within broader academic and research field; practice in report writing and formal presentations; as well as developing confidence in offering consultation, recommendations and ongoing referrals based on findings and outcomes of the research. As these pertinent perspectives suggests:

The experience and skills I gained from this placement have served me well in my current employment position as a Public Policy Officer and in previous roles as well. It certainly helped me in my entry into the social work and broader human services field and continues to help me.

Research placement is very significant in establishing students’ focus on one particular key area, develop the skills to manage the real time research projects and establish the external industry partnerships.

Students also had opportunities to present the findings of their placement research at multiple social work conferences enabling them to develop their networks and advance their research and interpersonal skills in a wider academic environment. One of the examples shared being: 

[My] pilot study findings were presented at the NSW AASW practice group Social Workers in Disability (SWID) 2016 Conference ‘Maximising Diversity, Engagement and Inclusion.’ I have presented my PhD research at conferences including: the 2020 Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability and Diversity (Honolulu, Hawaii); the Australian Association of Social Work (AASW) 2019 Annual Conference ‘Challenging Inequality: Working Together for a Just Society’ (Adelaide, SA).

Of interest, most of our reflections offered perspectives that suggested the research placement created a scaffold [of sorts] in learning how to design, execute and evaluate different social work programs. This scaffolding also included the ability to identify gaps in research and envision further scope for study and investigation of the projects which is explored further below.

Not only did we find that we as developing researchers gained some retention of transferable social work practice skills in a general sense, we also noted specific responses regarding research skills we identified as gaining, such as: designing a research methodology; writing an ethics application; undertaking a literature review; developing research questions; practising a range of data collection methods (survey, questionnaire, focus group discussion, interviews); coding data; data analysis; report writing; evaluating the project; presentation skills and confidence; and using relevant research tools and software such as Qualtrics, survey monkey, and SPSS. As several members of our team noted:

The task to assist with the ethics application has given me an excellent opportunity to develop the skills required to consider any social research. The research placement has introduced me to platforms such as Australian Research Council, NHMRC and other human ethics committees and application procedures required to conduct any social research involving humans.

I learned that phenomenology is an effective methodology for exploring and raising marginalized voices. I formed an understanding of how phenomenology focuses on describing and interpreting the lived experience of participants in order to create meaning and contribute to new understandings about the research issue being investigated.

Thus, it can be stated that research placements offer students a range of platforms to learn varied social work skills key to undertaking social work projects and research in different settings.

(c) Students were provided with opportunities to tailor ongoing higher degree research

The majority of our team expressed an ongoing desire for further study with a tailoring of our projects and research design, which were conducted at relatively smaller scale during our specific placements, being upgraded in scope and depth as we transitioned into relevant higher degree learning programs. Two students pursued a Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) soon after their placement, one undertook a Master of Research leading to a PhD, while two are exploring PhD opportunities as they continue doing social work research.

The project experience also influenced us in applying for scholarship funding for future research work. As these participants highlighted:

By expanding my placement pilot study, I was not only successful with my research proposal for commencing my PhD the following year, I also received an Australian Post Graduate Scholarship for three years.

The success of the report resulted in an offer from [the community organisation] and [the university] to continue my research role with an industry funded scholarship to undertake a PhD over four years.

This demonstrates the colossal role of research placement in inspiring placement students to navigate pathways of higher degree research.

Theme 2: the role of supervision in social work research placements is key to success

The next key theme emerging from the reflections was the role of supervision throughout the experience. A frequent highlight in the reflections offered by our writing group about the success of our social work research placements was the importance of regular supervision with our academic research advisor. There is a strong body of literature that suggests the practice of supervision in the social work field is integral to the success experienced by both the practitioner and the agency for whom they work (Barton et al., 2005). This is true also for social work students while on field placement (Satka et al., 2016). Supervision offers students regular opportunities to address clinical, administrative, and personal aspects of their placement experience with their supervisor (Australian Association of Social Workers, 2014), in turn creating a holistic, purposeful, yet caring learning environment for the student to develop. We found that over the course of our placement terms, the supervisory relationship morphed into a mentor-mentee dynamic, with self-identified increases in trust, confidence, belonging, and research capabilities emerging as key outcomes of our relationship with our common supervisor. An important indicator was of the effectiveness of the mentoring and supervisory relationship was that we (the former students) all enrolled, or intend to enrol, in further higher degree research studies, with several of our group already completing postgraduate studies. From this shared experience (albeit over differing timeframes), we posit the notion that supervision plays a crucial role in indicating the success of social work research placement and may encourage students to undertake further research as a practice in social work. This theme of supervision emerged with two distinct sub-themes from our group’s reflections: a) Students experienced success when maintaining purposeful and regular supervision; and b) Students perceived their supervisor as a mentor.

(a) Students experienced success when maintaining purposeful and regular supervision

Our supervisor, otherwise called our academic research advisor, played an important role in determining the gaps in practice knowledge we had as individual learners, and then tailoring supervision with relevant resources that equipped us with varied research skills we required to complete the research projects successfully. The nature of social work supervision is typically one-on-one in design, with our research placements being no different. We each acknowledged in our reflections that the one-on-one aspect of supervision allowed each of us to feel listened to, supported, and personally valued, and was key in enhancing our individual passions for pursuing a career in the social work field, with several members of our group sharing the following thoughts:

Being able to work one-on-one with my supervisor and build my understanding about how to conduct and produce research, helped me form a passion for research as a potential career option.

Supervision helped me in celebrating key placement milestones that further elevated my aspiration to become a future researcher. Success and development were hard to measure at times, and typically only came in the form of positive supervision sessions, which were typically once a fortnight.

Included in this experience of supervision was the institution of critical reflection for both the students and the academic research advisor. Critical reflection is a practice technique for analysing purposes and processes of social work intervention (Morley, 2008). It enables students and supervisors to interpret and analyse why they are doing what they do, and where it may be that misrecognised positions of power can, and do, influence social work practice and research (Fook, 2015; Hair, 2014). For us, this practice of critical reflection came in the form of conversations between the supervisor and student during regular supervision sessions, personal reflective writing on the experience which were most often kept in a personal journal, and assessment tasks for the relevant field education subjects. The students who participated in these placements valued the opportunity to critically reflect on a regular basis on what they had learned in terms of how social work is conducted in different formats and settings, understanding that power is often misrecognised in social work practice and social work research, and that social workers have an ethical responsibility to address inequities that may arise as a result. As one of our group members reflected:

Most of all, I learnt that social work is best practiced in direct and indirect formats, acknowledging that tangible change comes from critical evaluation, planning, consultation, and critical reflection.

The critical reflection process was one of learning, unlearning and relearning for our group, and was a prominent highlight for both supervisor and the students. We determined that the success of supervision was not only due to the work of the student in this process, but also the engagement of our academic research advisor (our supervisor). We recognised that for supervision to be effective, meaningful and aligned with social work values, that our supervisor was responsible for not only guiding our research practice, but also for emulating good practice in the research and supervisory context. Through the reflective process we were able to acknowledge that there is significant pressure on academic researchers offering supervision for student research placements, particularly in helping the students to maintain a sense of purpose, connection to the social work field, and setting tasks to keep students engaged and ‘busy’ with the work of research. The difficulty of this becomes clear when reading the reflection of our supervisor in the following excerpt:

The biggest challenge for me personally was making sure that I continued to critically reflect on my role. It was always very tempting to treat the students like a Research Assistant on my own pet projects, and so I had to be constantly aware that the placement was primarily about their learning needs rather than my own. For much of the time, these two spheres happily intersected and was mutually beneficial. I’m not sure whether I made this potential conflict particular overt, though, so even though I engaged in my own ongoing critical reflection, I may not have obviously role-modelled the practice. Nor did I, apart from the standard placement procedures such as placement liaison visit, seek direct and honest feedback from the students on my role.

Consistent and meaningful supervision as outlined in students’ reflections was instrumental for imparting a sense of satisfaction to students.

(b) Students perceive their supervisor as a mentor

Another key attribute for success in our research placements that we determined was the transition of relationship from supervisor to mentor for our academic research advisor. This distinction became important when reflecting on the experience of power and agency we (the students) experienced as our placements progressed. We considered the typical role of a supervisor to be one that focused on task maintenance throughout field placements, as opposed to that of a mentor role which focused on relationship maintenance and encourages self-directed learning and development. A mentor is positioned as an advisor and works to avoid practices of power and control over the mentee through subordination, often involved with that of teacher, manager, or a parent (although these are not mutually exclusive roles in a mentee’s life). This requires the mentor to purposefully provide less emphasis on instituting authority and control to guide and instead utilise inspiration, advocacy, resourcing, and agency as key practices which enable change and development in the student-mentee (Tsui et al., 2017; Wilson et al., 2002). While at times this was difficult for supervisors and students to maintain—particularly when the self-directed work became disorientating and it felt as though the research was not aligning with our social work discipline—it yet remained an extremely effective way for students to understand and experience how to personally design, implement and create change using social work research as a practice, and to feel a sense of personal success. The importance of the mentor relationship was clear throughout each of the reflections offered by our group members:

Being supervised and mentored by someone with a passion for equitable participation and achieving social justice outcomes was instrumental in my placement experience. It is significant to have a good supervisor to guide the students in a direction where the students can develop their skills towards a research career with achievable goals.

The isolation meant that my supervisor needed to play other roles for me (such as peer, manager, sounding board, complaints department, and empathetic friend) which would have typically been played by a number of other people if I was in other social work placement in organisational setting. I am certain it would not have been a successful placement if it weren’t for the experience, professionalism, flexibility, and empathy of my supervisor. He was a key lynchpin to my success throughout the placement.

A major part of the mentor role is to enable growth in social capital for mentees (Hezlett & Gibson, 2007). In the context of social work placements this meant to encourage opportunities for networking, conference presentations, research dissemination, as well as facilitating discussions regarding ongoing research opportunities and higher degree learning. In doing so our supervisor-mentor enabled us with an understanding of how social work research is conducted in the real world. This was instrumental in finding career opportunities in the social work research field, as well as successfully enrolling in further education opportunities. In reflection on this aspect of his supervisory role our academic research advisor shared:

I think, by and large, that the students have gone away with a clear picture of these differences and the importance of knowledge-based practice. The best way that happened, I think, was where the research projects were conducted with external partner organizations—this approach particularly demonstrated that social work research was still engaged with real people in the real world and not just something you did from a library or in front of a computer screen.

Reflections of students and supervisor thus highlighted the additional role of supervisor as a mentor and coach that consequently enriched students’ placement experiences and provided motivation for future research visions.

Theme 3: there is tension in gaining experience through self-directed and self-initiated research as a field placement opportunity

Our reflective logs help to illuminate that the research placement was a platform that created opportunities for students to experience self-directed learning and model what it might be like to work as a social work researcher after graduating. An important lesson for each member of our group was learning how to navigate the tension of balancing the desire for direct guidance and receiving supervisor-set tasks associated with the research process, with the need for developing skills through experience of self-initiated work, common in academic research. Two sub-themes were noted as important aspects of this tension in the research placement experience: a) Time, resources and workplace environment; and b) Overcoming a sense of uncertainty.

(a) Time, resources, and workplace environment

Our team identified several challenges that students in research placements encounter due to environment and location. Without the requirement for face-to-face attendance and the isolation due to lack of team setting, it was often difficult to manage expectations of time, access knowledge of resources and support, and experience a sense of purpose and security that comes with having an assigned workspace. As the following reflections highlight:

The timeline and duration of projects forced me to aim for very concise and short-term goals whereas most of the social work research skills can only be acquired with a longer duration of time.

One of the challenges I faced was the lack of physical space and work setting that would have allowed me to utilize my placement hours even more effectively. It would be a challenge to do research work without an assigned physical space where students can make themselves comfortable and work. I have utilized library and study rooms as space to work on my research projects. Management of time was another big challenge as there was no fixed hours of placement every day. There was flexibility to accomplish placements tasks however it came up with a challenge to manage the time.

The main challenges I encountered were related to my physical disability, which primarily were fatigue and needing to find accessible spaces on campus to conduct the interviews and attend supervision sessions.

While these experiences of the student group did not go unnoticed by our supervisors, and with strategies introduced to compensate the limitations to the research placement experience, these perspectives illustrated broader difficulties faced by field placement supervisors. Hewson et al. (2010), for example, recognised the increased labour workload when undertaking a supervisory role, and can often result in poor planning of student learning environments ever-present in field placements. These negative experiences of students become an increased burden of responsibility for the supervisor to hold and resolve. As a supervisor shared:

Allowing for self-directed learning as well as giving sufficient time to guiding and supporting students in their respective projects and reassuring them of their capacity and quality of their work was challenging at times. As I gradually took on more governance responsibilities within the academic team, time management for me did become more difficult.

Therefore, the limitations of time management and resources in a research placement, based on team’s experiences, were confronting as well as rewarding.

(b) Overcoming a sense of uncertainty

There are often feelings of ambivalence about alternative methods of social work field placement within the social work student cohort more broadly. This is likely due to the dominance of direct clinical practice positioned as ‘real’ social work in the field. If you are not placed in a hospital or non-government agency, are you even doing social work? Our team recognise that ‘indirect’ research placements are largely underestimated in providing students with valuable learning opportunities, and are therefore perhaps viewed as uncertain, misaligned, and somewhat detrimental to career development. This sense of uncertainty was certainly a reality for us, but after completing our respective placements we believe that the possible contribution to affect change in a research placement far outweighed the potential for impact in a direct role. Yet the in-direct experience remains less attractive to students and overcoming this uncertainty in the student cohort remains a significant challenge.

From our experiences, we believe there is a misconception about research placements being less efficient in equipping students with adequate social work skills needed in dealing with clients, families and communities in the human service sector. Very few students actively choose to do a research placement as they are likely influenced by the assumption that it prevents them from learning social work practice skills. Moreover, there remains a fear that organisations may hesitate to recruit a social work graduate who does not have placement experience of direct social work practice. In a hyperbolic sense, a research placement is just not ‘sexy.’ With undertones of being boring, pointless, and ineffective, as well as the challenges of isolation, self-directed, and self-initiated work, the research placement is as attractive as (or perhaps less attractive than) that of the aged-care placement. These fears are common yet critically flawed, and much could be done in shifting the broader cohort’s perspective. As many of our group reflected:

I found that the general understanding/assumptions of what social work research placement based in the university look like shaped social work students’ misconception of the research placement. Negative attitudes from a few social work colleagues were challenging. One of the assumptions is that research placement hinders social work students from learning real world social work skills. This resulted in my colleagues’ different attitude on my placement experiences and in my fear of not being able to secure a social work job per se.

Students with a strong focus and interest in working in service delivery sector in the future may not find the research placement very useful if their interests and needs are not identified prior to commencing the research placement. Many of us feared that our research placement may not lead to a job opportunity unlike our peers doing traditional social work placements in an organisation.

However, all student researchers identified that being able to work one-on-one with the supervisor was instrumental in building their understanding on how to design, execute and evaluate a research project that added uncommon value to their skill set. We each reflected on these limitations of the experience in our reflections, but at the completion of the placement we could reframe our thoughts as an opportunity to build strategies to thrive in future self-initiated and self-directed work situations. All agreed that the experience created a pathway to become better social workers and social work researchers/academics. One of our group members summarised their experience in the following:

I developed strong skills in how to survive and thrive in independent learning situations. I developed skills in verbally articulating the importance of research for social change. I learnt that social work research is a key aspect to critical social work practice. I’m a better social worker and better person after undertaking my final field placement in a social work research context.

Students’ reflections outlined the sense of uncertainty about research placements however the benefits of learning adaptive social work and research skills were profoundly captured.

Implications and limitations

Our reflective logs highlighted the massive role of social work placements in producing significant and resourceful outcomes for emerging social workers through networking experiences. Social work research placements create links between the university and community organisations. Through research placements, students can further enrich community resources, contribute to positive social change, and be recognised by the university and community organisations. Collaboration with community organisations and networking with key stakeholders is identified as an important element for students, and a research project is the reason for and the scaffold by which this can happen. It remains essential to make efforts in creating opportunities where students can still interact with social work and human service agencies in the ‘real world’ (i.e. not just being stuck in the university). Doing this is important for giving students a sense of connection to the profession and the range of roles that social workers take on.

Our experiences demonstrate that research is a legitimate social work placement option. In our case, they have been instrumental in producing significant and resourceful outcomes. Some examples are project reports leading to further funding, consultation about the impact of social work podcasts for learning about research, MSW(Q) career paths in the first year after graduation, and a study that structures an evidence-based support and resource manual designed to increase opportunity for young males to develop and strengthen their mental health and wellbeing. In addition to these, the university also benefits from the project work students execute during placement as they enrich the school’s resources. For example, students at placement reviewed the mental health policies and program for international students in Australian universities. They created a forum for future cohorts of MSW(Q) students as part of their placements, which are being recognised as valuable and continued as long-term projects in the university and was a key factor in ringing important curriculum changes for MSWQ students. Placement projects also included advocating for more inclusive and appropriate policy around students with disabilities. These outcomes generated enthusiasm for enhancing the learning environment and experience of future social work students, and became stepping-stones to pursuing an academic career.

As a group we acknowledge that there are limitations regarding the insights and perspectives we have so far shared. We particularly recognise the immense scope that lays ahead for future investigations of research-as-placement, which has the potential to reveal new insights, knowledges, and critiques that may emerge from similar student placement opportunities. In reference to the limitations of the work shared in this paper, we would highlight that the majority of our placements occurred in collaboration with an external organisation. Each organisation was willing to engage in a research project that welcomed the inclusion of a student. We highlight that this opportunity of external engagement and the willingness of organisations to include placement students may not always be available and therefore research projects may require greater facilitation and direction (and corresponding workload allocation) from the academic supervisor. There also remains a responsibility on the academic to ensure the research project’s viability and success, along with managing any ethical dilemmas or potential risks involved with students undertaking ‘real life’ research with ‘real life’ implications. We acknowledge the risk of reputational harm if the project flounders or fails, or if there is an ethical dilemma that arises from student contributions to research. Some examples being the possibility of research data mismanagement, or the limitations in research analysis skills, or missing key findings or outcomes in the research process. We believe these risks can be mitigated with active involvement from an academic supervisor who has the appropriate time and workload allocation to commit to such supervision.

Another limitation is evident in the recognition that we have offered an overall positive skew to the experience of research-as-placement, and that this type of placement may not be universally experienced as such among student cohorts. The authoring team consists of students from one institution, and therefore the findings outlined in this work (although spread across different years) remain centralised on this single cohort of participants. We suggest that different findings may emerge when trialling placement experiences such as ours across other institutions with differing pressures and expectations of student placement and differing access to supportive resources. With this in mind, we believe that the best opportunity to measure the success of research-as-placement is to take note of the themes and sub-themes outlined in this paper, ensuring that there is a planned scope and timeframe of the project, strong engagement from the academic supervisor and participating external organisations, as well as a desire from the placement student themselves to substantially invest in the experience of the research-as-placement model. Without these conditions, the likelihood of replicating placement success as a path to an academic career will remain limited. We do hope, however, that our experiences will assist with continuing to develop a sustainable and effective research-as-placement opportunity for future social work students.

Overall, our reflections reiterate the crucial role of research placements in creating pathways for higher degree research and actively involving ourselves in social work education. We have shared how the research we were involved in during the placement encouraged us to choose social work academia as our career. This implies that there is a significant opportunity for these types of placements in enriching the arena of social work research, and consequently the learning experience for the next generations of social work students.

This initiative resulted out of our team members’ enthusiasm to expose higher value of social work research placements that is often less valued, and is sufficiently flexible to survive interruptions from unexpected sources such as global pandemics. Another aspect of this research is the manifestation of collaboration between social work students and supervisors at different stages of their academic career in co-creating new knowledge based on their experiences. This sets the foreground for future research based on collaboration between academic supervisors and social work placement students as well as among students themselves that will eventually enrich social work field education and develop a strong cohort of emerging social work academics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).