Building collaborative capacity for using and evaluating the impact of e-learning in social work education: the case of law

This article reports on a learning set designed to support educators teaching law to social work students in England to build their capacity, first, for engaging with e-learning resources and, second, for evaluating the outcomes of their use in teaching. A mixed methods approach was used, including recording and transcription of the content of seven learning set meetings with eight participants over 2½ years, repeat measures questionnaires to capture changes in attitudes and orientation to the use of e-learning, reflective diaries, and individual interviews with learning set members. The findings demonstrate increased self-perceived capacity in blending e-learning into teaching and in researching the outcomes. The learning set enabled e-learning to become embedded in the curriculum progressively over two years. Participation was experienced as a constructive and empowering experience. There were positive changes in attitudes, motivators and barriers to the use of e-learning, and in orientation to the use of IT resulting in improved confidence. Similarly, understanding of, and the ability to apply, evaluation techniques to track changes in student learning improved throughout the project, confirming the collaborative capacity building value of the learning set approach. The findings have broad relevance for social work education beyond the teaching of law.