With gratitude to my collaborator on these manuscripts, Dr. Mary Nienow, these mansucripts are under peer review at Advances in Social Work‘s special issue on social work exam equity. They culminate a years-long open data project on social work licensing exams.
DeCarlo, M. P., & Nienow, M. (2024, October 15). Uniquely Biased: How ASWB Exams Violate Psychometric Best Practices. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/2bxdt
After publication of the 2022 Pass Rate Analysis demonstrating minoritized social workers pass at less than half the rate of White social workers, the Association of Social Work Board (ASWB) Examination Guidebook (ASWB, 2023a), revised its psychometric reporting of exam fairness from “statistically free of race and gender bias” to “differences in exam performance for…different demographic groups…is influenced by many factors external to the exam,” upstream of the examination in the workforce pipeline (p. 9). Focusing only on factors external to the exam ignores the possibility that the internal properties of the exam may be invalid, unreliable, and unfair. Race, class, culture, and other structural factors do not impact ASWB exams the same over time, with ASWB’s 2022 Exam Pass Rate Analysis reporting 10-13% reductions in bachelors and masters examination pass rates after the introduction of the 2018 exam blueprint. Using extensive references to ASWB’s public statements, this article will demonstrate how ASWB ignored evidence of examination flaws and presents external factors as the only possible explanation for disparities in pass rates. Beginning with the policy paradox created by national organizational disagreement on the cause and next steps on exam score inequities, this article will review the extant empirical evidence demonstrating how bias is encoded to the language and theories underlying the examination as well as psychometric shortcomings in ASWB’s exam validation process converge to create a uniquely biased exam.
DeCarlo, M. P., & Nienow, M. (2024, October 15). In Pursuit of the Status Quo: ASWB’s Research, Grantmaking, and Regulatory Practices. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/vbh7q
The Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Examination Program is used in all 50 states to regulate the practice of clinical social work and in the majority of states to regulate the practice of masters and bachelors-level social work. After releasing descriptive data demonstrating biases in exam pass rates by race, age, and dominant language, ASWB engaged in research and regulatory actions that violate social work ethics and psychometric best practices. This article will critique the research, grantmaking, and regulatory practices that support the ASWB Examination Program using extensive citations to psychometric standards, ASWB’s publications and exam documentation, and the researchers’ experiences engaging with ASWB to study the cause of exam score disparities. The analysis will reveal how, after their 2022 release of data demonstrating exam bias with respect to race, age, and language, ASWB funded researchers already affiliated with ASWB to support what it already tells test-takers in its exam guidebook–only structural factors bias exam scores, not psychometric flaws internal to the examination. Moreover, ASWB implemented solutions to exam bias without proper investigation and psychometric support. Because of ASWB’s position as the sole publisher and purchaser of licensing examinations, individual state boards are unable to make incremental changes to prevent biased ASWB examinations from closing the profession of social work to groups for whom the exam is invalid, unreliable, and unfair.
Open Social Work 