Learning Solution-Focused Interviewing Skills: BSW Student Voices

Abstract

This article describes the 15-year evolution of a course devoted to teaching solution-focused interviewing skills to BSW students and the role these students played in the course's design. We drew inspiration from the strengths perspective that implies that just as practitioners can learn much about how to practice from clients, social work educators can learn much about how to teach from students. We describe the course, the student input influencing its design, and student response, including a qualitative data set that indicates what students believe contributes most to their learning. The emerging picture of the teaching and learning of interviewing skills is viewed against the backdrop of related research and theory, and the implications for social work education are addressed.

Keywords:

• interviewing skills
• solution focused
• lab learning
• students' views