Values,Competencies And Emotions:The Change Logic Of Professional Identity Of MSW Interns

In recent years,our country has vigorously promoted the construction and vocational development of social work professionals,but the reality is that students trained by universities are not willing to stay in the social work profession after graduation,the professional matching rate is low and the brain drain is serious.This phenomenon has been a collective anxiety in social work education and practice circles,but recent studies have not responded well to this problem.The study found that students’ professional identity is related to the phenomenon.During the graduation internships,the author found that the professional identity of MSW interns showed different changes,fluctuating up,fluctuating level and fluctuating down.The author wonders why the professional identity of students with the same professional education changes differently during the internship process.What are the mechanisms behind the changes?Therefore,this paper takes students as the main subject and wants to see the logic behind the change of MSW students’ professional identity through the process of graduation internship.This paper is based on role theory,in which MSW interns are placed under the structural elements of school,institution,internship system,and professional requirements,while interacting with multiple actors in the internship to"deconstruct" and "construct" their perceptions and evaluations of the profession.The direction of "structure" and "construction"of role theory makes it possible to analyze the structure and process of role-playing of social work interns,and also provides a new perspective for the analysis of changes in professional identity.In this paper,a purposive sample of 13 MSW interns from different fields was selected to analyze the changes in their professional identities during their graduation internships,specifically,in-depth interviews were used for data collection and a combination of"genus analysis" and"contextual analysis"was used for data analysis.In particular,indepth interviews were used for data collection,and a combination of "genus analysis" and"context analysis" was used for data analysis.In this paper,the analysis was conducted along the framework of"professional education-role setting-role practice-professional identity",and the study found three mechanisms behind the change of professional identity of MSWs during the graduation internship,namely,the value gap mechanism,the ability gap mechanism and the emotional change mechanism.The study identified three mechanisms behind the change of professional identity of MSW interns in graduation internship,namely,value gap mechanism,ability gap mechanism and emotional change mechanism,which together shape the change of professional identity of MSW intern s.To expand,the value gap mechanism determines the general trend of professional identity change,i.e.,if the value gap is small,professional identity develops relatively steadily,and if the value gap is large and actual is better than expected,professional identity increases,and vice versa;the ability gap mechanism affects the fluctuation direction of professional identity,and if the ability gap is small,it does not affect the fluctuation of identity,and if the ability gap is large and actual is better than expected,it fluctuates upward,and vice versa;the affective change mechanism is not only influenced by the value and ability gap,but also influenced by the change of professional identity.The change mechanism is not only influenced by the value and ability mechanism,but also influenced by the emotional input and feedback in the internship,and in a comprehensive view,positive emotion causes the fluctuation of professional identity upward,and vice versa.Further exploring the reasons behind the changes in values,competencies and emotions,this paper analyzes the influence of values,knowledge and skills in professional education on all three,i.e.,the transfer of knowledge and skills in education affects competency drop,value education corresponds to value drop,and affective changes are affected by value and competency drop.Therefore,another focus of this paper is to analyze the impact of social work professional education on professional identity and discuss how to enhance professional identity through"value" in professional education.This study can be used to improve professional education and personnel training,and promote the development of social work professionalism and occupation.