All programs accredited by the Council on Social Work Education’s Commission on Accreditation (COA) are required to measure and report student learning outcomes. All students are assessed using a minimum of two measures on their mastery of the nine competencies that comprise the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) and any additional competencies programs may choose to add. These holistic competencies reflect the dimensions (knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive & affective processes) of social work practice that all social workers are expected to master during their professional training.
Programs determine a percentage-based benchmark for each competency and determine an outcome-measure benchmark (minimum score) for each measure. The competency benchmark (which can differ for each competency) represents the minimum percent of students the program expects to have achieved the outcome measure benchmarks in both/all measures for each of the nine competencies. The program then determines the percentage of students that attained each outcome measure (e.g., minimum score or higher), and aggregates the percentages for both/all measures together to obtain the percentage of students demonstrating competence inclusive of two (2) or more measures. The result of aggregating both/all outcome measure percentages provides the percentage of students achieving the competency benchmark. An aggregated percentage at or above the competency benchmark is considered achievement of that competency. If the program has more than one program option, the program must report data for each program option, and also an aggregate of all program options combined to determine an overall percentage of students across all program options achieving the competency benchmark.
Download program reports below.