Develop key competences for social workers with help of virtual conversation training and artificial intelligence

Purpose and goal:

The aim is to, in collaboration with professionals, develop, implement and evaluate learning activities for social work-students through conversational training in virtual environments and AI-driven conversational analysis.

The overall goal is to increase social workers’ knowledge and preparation for professional conversations through work-integrated learning and thus increase their opportunities to stay and develop in their profession and reduce the risk for illness. In a longer perspective, this means an improved quality in social work.

Expected results and effects: The objective of the project is that:

- newly graduated social workers January 2024 feel that they have increased experience and skills for professional conversations in comparison with previous students who did not take part in this learning activity

- professional social workers develop an in-depth understanding of the professional skills needed for professional conversations, ( ii) how this is expressed, and (iii) one´s own ability in relation to the above Approach and implementation:

Together with the participating municipality, realistic and current conversation scenarios that can arise in social work are developed. Through virtual reality, social work-students practice conversations based on the scenarios that have been developed. Through the virtual conversation training, the students receives feedback about how well he or she has succeeded in the conversation based on criteria that were programmed into the conversation scenario. The digital conversations are followed up orally and in course evaluations.