Many Asian Americans tend to report receiving lower quality services from direct service providers. Improving the cultural competence of social workers and other professionals who work with Asian Americans may address this dissatisfaction. To date, there are few tools to help educators and supervisors evaluate the level of cultural competence of social workers and other health professionals. This study reports on the development and testing of a cultural competence measure to evaluate social workers’ preparedness for working with Asian American clients.

Based on a sample of 294 student social workers, the final 29-item instrument is a reliable and valid tool.

The instrument shows strong content validity according to expert panelists, robust reliability, excellent model fit, and preliminary evidence of construct validity.

The validated Cultural Competency with Asian American Clients Scale could be used by social work educators in planning courses and assessing student readiness for work with Asian Americans.