INTEGRATING RESEARCH PROJECTS INTO FIELD WORK EXPERIENCES: ENHANCED TRAINING FOR UNDERGRADUATE GERIATRIC SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS

The aging of the U.S. population is creating a growing need for well-trained social workers to serve aging clients and their families. The needs of these clients are often multidimensional, requiring practitioners who are well trained in understanding and applying complex theory, research findings, and practice approaches. Unfortunately, several factors impede best case scenarios in geriatric social work education. These include limited opportunities to study or specialize in aging, a smaller than optimal proportion of social work students seeking such training, and students' frequent fearfulness of research courses and their first practicum field experience. This paper suggests that we can more effectively train social work practitioners (as well as researchers and administrators) by modifying the common practice of teaching research and practice in distinct and separate courses. Specifically, we advocate the addition of an applied research component to the field work portion of students' training. The systematic approach to problem study and explanation, which is the cornerstone of research training, should also be applied to real world practice complexities that students encounter during their field work training and practitioners face in their careers.