Title

Noticing and Attending to Relational Process: A Dialogical Analysis of MSW Student Competency Development in Relational Therapy

Department/School

Social Work

Date of this version

2021

Document Type

Article

Keywords

family therapy, competency-based education, graduate education, constructivism in education, interpersonal process recall, dialogical analysis

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2019.1700224

Abstract

We explored Masters of Social Work (MSW) student discourses of learning experiences related to Noticing and Attending to Relational Process (NARP) in a course devoted to clinical practice with families and couples. Within two to three weeks after completing recorded peer role-play assignments and receiving audio-recorded feedback from the instructor, five randomly selected students participated in an unstructured interpersonal process recall (IPR) interview. The instructor/first author queried students about specific role-play moments and reactions to instructor-produced, audio-recorded feedback regarding NARP competencies. We used dialogical analysis to identify discourses and rhetorical features of interview data. Five primary themes emerged. Based on our Bahktinian interpretation of interview data with students, our findings also demonstrated multi-voiced discourses, indicating students’ internal struggle to make sense of NARP and respond to instructor feedback. Educators and practitioners can more intentionally attune themselves to these discourses, potentially opening avenues for stronger social work service provision.

Volume

40

Issue

4

Published in

Social Work Education

Citation/Other Information

Peterson, L. T., Murphy, K., Grandt, S., & Roubal, J. V. (2021). Noticing and attending to relational process: A dialogical analysis of MSW student competency development in relational therapy. Social Work Education, 40(4), 445-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2019.1700224

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