Assessing the practicum in social education: improvement actions to face the implementation of the new undergraduate degrees

Abstract

This work shows the background and evolution of the Practicum in the Social Education degree together with the main results of a study that, from the students’ point of view, tries to find their degree of satisfaction and the usefulness of the Practicum of the Degree in Social Education of the Faculty of Social Sciences in Talavera de la Reina (Spain). Our aim is to find evidences which may help us take the appropriate decisions for the improvement of these training tasks which are very important for the professional development of the students. For that purpose and using a descriptive approach, a questionnaire created ad hoc has been validated by experts’ opinions and exhaustive interviews with the aim of collecting qualitative and quantitative information from third-year students of Social Education during the academic year 2009/2010. In this sense, the main aspects of study have been the organization and sequencing of the Practicum; the tutoring action carried out both by the tutors of the institutions for work experience and by the tutors at University; the usefulness of the work experience; and finally, the improvement proposals made by our students. An advance of the results shows a series of needs which have to be met and which include the improvement of tutoring processes by means of good welcome programmes for the students in the institutions for work experience, as well as the guided supervision of University tutors. The results also include the reconsideration of the Practicum according to the theoretic guidelines of the European Higher Education Area, which enrich our current model of work experience.

Keywords

• educación social
• practicum
• organización
• acción tutorial
• estudiantes
• docentes
• instituciones prácticas