Questioning the merits and demerits of electronic communication in Social Work

This paper examines the social dynamics of electronic exchanges in the human services, particularly in social work. It focuses on the observable effects that email and texting have on the linguistic, relational and clinical rather than managerial aspects of the profession. It highlights how electronic communication is affecting professionals in their practice and learners as they become acculturated to social work. What are the gains and losses of the broad use of electronic devices in daily lay and professional, verbal and non-verbal communication? Will our current situation be seriously detrimental to the demeanor of future practitioners, their use of language, and their ability to establish close personal relationships? The paper analyzes social work linguistic and behavioral changes in light of the growth of electronic communication and offers a summary of merits and demerits viewed through a prism emerging from Baron’s (2000) analysis of human communication.

Co-evaluation as a strategy to improve working group dynamics: an experience in Sport Sciences

The aim of this study was to analyze if the perceptions of students before and after carrying out the work, that is, their perception of different aspects of the functioning of the group, the working skills acquired as well as those they think that need to be improved, varied depending on whether the contribution of the different members of the group was being co-evaluated or not. 144 students of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences participated in this study. In order to analyze the students' perception of group work the adapted questionnaire by Bourne et al. (2001) was used. Results showed that groups which implemented co-evaluation assessed more negatively the experience in general than those which did not. However, co-evaluation groups perceived their competence to work as a team had improved to a greater extent than the groups without co-evaluation, evaluating more positively both the performance and the result of work and increasing their knowledge of the other team members. Using a co-evaluation system seems to generate both a better assessment of the running of the team and the result of its work.