Unit Synopsis
This unit provides you with an overview of the ideas and practices of contemporary management and leadership and relates these to social work practice. You should be able to critically analyse the role of social worker as a manager, evaluate management and leadership approaches, and explore alternative leadership strategies to assist in the integration of social work values and ethics alongside the role of the manager and specific agency requirements for the delivery of services. You should be able to propose leadership models appropriate to social work practice contexts and provide relevant strategies to promote social work values and ethics, and collaborative leadership. You will have opportunities in this unit to integrate your learning with experiences in the workplace or field education.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 4 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Successful completion of 48 credit points and pre-requisite of SOWK13009 is required. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 40% |
| 2. Group Discussion | 30% |
| 3. Group Work | 30% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: UC
Students struggled with the assessments.
Review the assessments with the social work team and leadership.
The assessment and learning outcomes were reviewed and changed at course committee.
Source: UC
Students had low engagement with the content of the unit impacting on the performance overall.
Change assessments to ensure engagement with the unit content.
Two of the three assessment tasks were redesigned in 2024 to increase early and sustained student engagement with the unit. Both revised assessments incorporated collaborative group work and were due in Week 4, requiring students to engage with the unit content from the commencement of term rather than delaying their learning until later in the semester. This early engagement was intended to encourage regular participation, collaborative learning, and timely application of key concepts. The improved grade distribution observed in 2024 suggests that these assessment changes contributed positively to student learning and academic achievement.
Source: Online classes
Some students reported that completing a group assessment as the final assessment task presented challenges, particularly in managing the collaborative requirements at the end of the teaching term.
Review the timing and implementation of the final group assessment in consultation with the teaching team and student feedback to identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary stress while maintaining the intended learning outcomes.
In Progress
Source: UC
Student feedback highlighted the minimum pass requirement as an area for consideration during the unit review process.
Following discussion with the Head of College, it was confirmed that completion of this unit does not need to be a prerequisite for progression to placement. Accordingly, the minimum pass requirement will be removed, subject to approval through the Course Committee (CC), to ensure the unit requirements are appropriately aligned with the course progression requirements.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Critically evaluate contemporary approaches to management within organisations where social work is practised including the trends and theories influencing these approaches
- Propose a management plan appropriate to social work practice contexts that promotes the integration of social work values and ethics and collaborative leadership, including leadership approaches suitable for Indigenous and cross cultural contexts.
- Critically reflect on leadership qualities and skills and articulate insights gained for future social work practice.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | |
| 2 - Group Discussion | • | • | • |
| 3 - Group Work | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | |
| 5 - Team Work | • | • | |
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | • | • |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | • |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |