Many caseworkers perceive that the new information technology compromises their ability to offer services at all or in the quality of the services because it has greatly increased their caseloads, therefore making it impossible to deliver the services they previously could on a client by client basis. As stated above, the ability to perceive that younger clients may be getting more services may not occur to case workers over 35 and would probably to those who are under that age. This is especially the case when the it system goes down and then they can not deliver services via paper or have to reschedule a visit. This just further clogs the caseworker's overworked schedule. Additionally, there would be a question of how it would affect the documentation of client information in an evidence-based environment, especially when one is documenting client issues for pending court dates or court-appointed actions.
Supervisors generally perceive that the use of technology increases accountability of the social workers to deliver services for every precious dollar allocated. This is based on the sheer amount of data that is being processed and that is available at one to three keystrokes or the movement of a mouse. Theoretically, this should improve the performance of an evidence-based practice. However, if the client is lost in the melange, it is easy to sympathize with the caseworker's worries.
Supervisors perceive that it helps the social worker to provide more services to the clients. They are generally not taking into account the increased work loads and conceptual anxiety exhibited on the part of the social workers and their clients. This ability to deliver impacts directly upon accountability and as pointed above, this delivery may depend on the exposure to and familiarity with it. The supervisors perceive that it increases their subordinates discipline and makes them able to do more with less.
Survey Methodology
The social work methodology for this research proposal will be similar to that used in studies in online education as evidenced in online and remote learning environments. Even more importantly,...
Anxiety level is the most important factor and will be a central focus of the study as it was in the Saade and Kira. They broke their anxiety component down into trait anxiety (general pervasive anxiety over the range of the experience), state anxiety (fluctuates over time in relation to responsive situations) and concept-specific anxiety (transitory type of anxiety that follows the between trait and state) (ibid., 179).
Anxiety will then be linked to perceived ease of use (PEU) and self-efficacy, which is the ability one has to judge their ability level to handle the it (ibid., 180-181). Self-efficacy is determined by the levels of anxiety that are in addition to an active and a vicarious clinical experience. Both vicarious information and verbal persuasion increase the levels of self-efficacy. Lack of training can be a huge barrier (ibid.).
Sample-size
The sample size will be 500 social work caseworker professionals. They will have been polled and selected from facilities with the State Department of Children and Family Services.
Measures -- an independent coder will score the questionnaires and tally and tabulate the data in the study.
Data collection -- the data will be collected from questionnaires that the social work case workers voluntarily fill out regarding issues that they have with information technology in their child case practice environment.
Data Analysis -- the data analysis is qualitative in nature. The independent variable will be the anxiety level. The dependent variable will be the age of the caseworker divided into two groups, one over 35 and one under 35.
References
Choi, G., Ligon, J., & Ward, J. (2002). Computer anxiety and social workers: differences by access, use, and training. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 19(1), 1-12.
Saade, R.G., & Kira, D. (2009). Computer anxiety in e-learning: The effect of computer self-efficacy.
Journal of Information Technology Education, 8, 177-191.
