Assessing social work competence
Competence assessments for licensing play a role in ensuring professionals can apply their knowledge to serve clients and client systems safely and ethically. They are one of the key entry-to-practice standards required by state and provincial social work regulatory agencies because they measure competence objectively.
Grounded in social work practice
Social work licensing exam content is established by a regular survey of practicing social workers throughout the United States and Canada. This survey, called a practice analysis, asks thousands of social workers about the applied knowledge they need to practice safely the first day on the job.
The content of the 2026 social work competency assessments will be based on the 2024 Analysis of the Practice of Social Work, conducted as part of the Social Work Census.
Social workers are involved in every step of the examination development process
Practice analysis
The Practice Analysis Task Force provided subject matter expertise to the development of the practice analysis survey. These social workers met twice, once to recommend questions to be included on the survey and once to review survey results and provide recommendations for statements on the content outline.
Practice analysis
The process of creating the exam begins with a practice analysis, a major survey of the tasks of thousands of practicing social workers.
A step forward in developing the next competence assessment
The development of the next iteration of competence assessments for social work licensing, slated for launch in 2026, took a major step forward when the 2022–2024 Practice Analysis Task Force held its final meeting on September 6 and 7 in Reston, Virginia.
Content outlines
The content outlines for the current social work licensing exams were developed using the 2017 Analysis of the Practice of Social Work. The next content outlines will based on data from the 2024 Social Work Census, an even more inclusive survey of the profession.
Exam development
Item writers are practicing social workers, including social work educators, contracted and trained by ASWB to write questions for the licensing exams. These social workers are recruited periodically and selected to reflect diversity in practice setting, gender, race, ethnicity, and geography.
Exam development consultants are experienced social workers who train and coach item writers. These consultants are paid by ASWB to ensure the overall quality and consistency of questions.
The Examination Committee reviews every exam question to ensure each is fair, accurate, meaningful, and current.
The Form Review team reviews every exam version to give a final review, ensuring quality standards are met.
Examination Program Yearbook
Learn more about the social workers involved in exam development.
Valid, reliable, and fair assessments
The social work licensing exams, like all licensing exams, undergo rigorous psychometric analysis to ensure that they are valid, reliable, and fair measures of competence.
The science of measuring competence fairly
Every scored question on a social work licensing exam has passed through rigorous statistical analysis via pretesting and monitoring. This psychometric analysis is critical to the validity, reliability, and fairness of the exams.
Exam scoring
In any pass/fail exam, there is a ”pass point,“ the number of questions a candidate must answer correctly in order to pass the exam. All jurisdictions that use the ASWB exams recognize the same pass point.