Student social workers use of social media: a cross national survey

Abstract

This chapter discusses the development and implementation of a project to engage BA undergraduate social work students in a Twitter debate the topic of which was about the merits of registration with a regulatory body. Currently English social work students are not required to register with the regulatory body, the Health Care Professions Council, but Scottish students are required to register with the Scottish Social Care Council (SSSC) and comply with the respective codes of conduct. Our aims in this research were to encourage social work students to use Twitter to complement their classroom learning, to participate in a Twitter debate about registration with a regulatory body and through their completion of an online pre and post-debate survey. The project was designed to support them to set up a Twitter account and interact with other social work students. The project was based in two sites, one in England and one in Scotland and involved 50 students and 3 social work educators. The different registration requirements for both sets of students formed the basis of the discussion during the debate. This chapter provides a background discussion about Twitter and how this led to the development and implementation of this study. We then discuss the findings of the survey questionnaire which captures the views of social work students in regards to their use of social media.