Role conflict, role ambiguity and self-efficacy among school social workers

This study examines the relationships among role conflict, role ambiguity, general self-efficacy and school social work self-efficacy in school social workers. The impact of role conflict in complex organizations has been a prominent field of study for more than fifty years (Tubre & Collins, 2000), while the construct of self-efficacy occupies a prominent place in organizational psychology (Staadjkovic & Luthans, 1998). This study investigated whether school social workers can capitalize on the energizing power of role conflict (Jones 1993) to seize on new opportunities in school social work practice.; A random sample of School Social Work Association of America members, comprising 109 social workers employed in public schools, responded to surveys consisting of three scales (role perception, general self-efficacy and school social work self-efficacy) and a demographic profile. Rizzo et al.'s Role Perception Questionnaire (1970) was used to investigate role conflict and role ambiguity. The General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) was used to measure an individual's sense of personal competence to effectively deal with a variety of stressful situations. This writer developed the third scale, an instrument to assess school social work self-efficacy.; The study found that role conflict was not associated with either general self-efficacy or school social work self-efficacy in the practice of school social work, while role ambiguity was negatively correlated with both constructs. Moreover, consistent with prior research on self-efficacy, age and experience were associated with higher levels of self-efficacy in school social workers. Of the tasks included in the measurement of school social work self-efficacy, school social workers rated themselves least effective in administration and policy development.