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Across North America, the open education movement has blossomed in the past 10 years, with a majority of institutions of higher education employing open textbooks in at least one course. Unfortunately, social work lags behind other disciplines in the adoption, adaptation, and creation of open educational resources. This teaching note offers practical advice for faculty exploring open education based on the lessons learned from the author's two open textbook projects for undergraduate and graduate social work research methods. As universities, states, and international bodies increase funding for open education projects, the field of social work should demonstrate its commitment to equity, inclusion, and justice by leading these efforts within our classrooms, discipline, and institutions.

Self-directed home and community based services (HCBS) waiver services and supports for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have become a viable and widely used method of service provision in the United States. Grounded in theories of self-determination, previous literature on self-direction has suggested high satisfaction and positive outcomes for people who use self-directed programs as well as cost savings for state IDD service systems. This study explored the ways in which state IDD service administrators think about how self-direction may be used as a method of achieving cost savings while providing opportunities for people with IDD and their families to exercise choice and control. Informed by 54 high-level IDD service administrators in 34 states, and guided by a thematic analysis approach to data interpretation, the study found evidence that administrators typically see strong potential for self-direction to have cost-savings benefits, while also fostering choice. In the current political climate, the need for cautious fiscal stewardship may become a stronger driving force behind self-direction for people with IDD in the United States.

In August 2022, the Association of Social Work Boards released a long called for pass rate analysis that revealed significant disparities. While many states look to cease the requirement of the Bachelors, Masters, and Advanced Generalist exams in their licensure process, status quo bias leads to hesitancy to remove the requirement of the Clinical exam. A critical review was undertaken to identify possible alternatives to the current multiple-choice competency-based exam which yielded three assessment formats (oral exams, portfolios, and performance assessment/simulations) and two alternatives (jurisprudence exams and provisional licensure). Informed by an Afrocentric lens, we undertook a social and racial policy analysis to examine alternative pathways for licensure from the perspective of a social work board member. We centered our analysis on the impacts on (1) Black social workers, who currently have the highest pass-rate disparities; (2) social workers whose primary language is not English, and (3) social workers with disabilities who have anecdotally reported difficulty with getting testing accommodations. We rated each alternative on four social equity analysis criteria of procedural fairness, access, quality, and outcomes. These ratings were computed into an overall rating for each alternative from equitable to inequitable. We found jurisprudence exams and provisional licensure have the best possibility of being equitable pathways to licensure, with potential impacts on the regulation of supervision and continuing education. Anti-racism and social justice as praxis require social work as a profession to divest from competency-based testing to eliminate racism in our own professional policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers from minoritized racial, ethnic, linguistic, and age groups are far less likely to pass licensing examinations required to practice. Using a simulated data set, our study investigates measurement equivalence, or invariance, of social work licensing exams. For this analysis, we simulated responses to 15 multiple-choice questions which were scored as either correct or incorrect using the R mirt package and used mirt to fit a 2-parameter logistic model (2PL) to the response data. We generated the data so that five items could demonstrate DIF and calculated their impact on the test characteristic curves and item characteristic curves. Small amounts of differential item functioning added up into differential test functioning, but the effect size was small. This result is one potential outcome of an analysis of ASWB exams. Most studies evaluating test characteristic curves demonstrate small effect sizes. Measuring the test characteristic curve and the test information curve will help to investigate content-irrelevant sources of variance in the exams, including unfairness, unreliability, and invalid pass scores. Differential test functioning is a core part of measurement invariance studies. Psychometric standards require test developers to assess measurement invariance at both the item-level and test-level to protect themselves from accusations of bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across North America, the open education movement has blossomed in the past 10 years, with a majority of institutions of higher education employing open textbooks in at least one course. Unfortunately, social work lags behind other disciplines in the adoption, adaptation, and creation of open educational resources. This teaching note offers practical advice for faculty exploring open education based on the lessons learned from the author's two open textbook projects for undergraduate and graduate social work research methods. As universities, states, and international bodies increase funding for open education projects, the field of social work should demonstrate its commitment to equity, inclusion, and justice by leading these efforts within our classrooms, discipline, and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on academic leaders producing data often various demographic groups passing or failing licensing exams. Topics include public statements restating the commitment for recruiting diverse exam writers and committee members as well as analyzing for bias for individual questions; and releasing the data necessary assessing for racial bias at the most relevant level of analysis.