Role Ambiguity in Social Work Students

The Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) stated that a signature pedagogy is charged with teaching students the means of practicing their profession, socializing them to the role, and integrating their knowledge with their practice. A signature pedagogy necessitates that the preprofessional must often learn from ambiguous circumstances. The field experience is the signature pedagogy of social work education. However, field instructors and social work programs may clash in their beliefs about what is adequate and what is inadequate performance, resulting in ambiguity for the students. Social work field interns may feel stress when their beliefs and their field placements are incompatible. The mismatch between field placement and classroom learning can produce difficulties in role clarity manifested as role ambiguity. Research indicates that role ambiguity is a statistically significant factor in student burnout.