Transcript Research Methods Fal..

Research Methods
Michael A. Dover, MSW, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
Chapter One: The Utility of
Research in Social Work
• OUTLINE
– Introduction to Research in Social Work
• Professional Competition
• Knowledge Generation
– Obligation to Share Knowledge
– Evaluating Research
– Essential Skills for a Social Worker
– Evidence-based Practice
• Six Steps (pages 6-7) (Question formulation;search for
evidence; critical appraisal of strong vs. weak studies;
determination of which evidence-based intervention is best
for your client; applying the intervention; evaluation and
feedback.
Chapter 1
• Social work research seeks…(RB5)
– Practice practical knowledge to solve problems they confront.
– Provide information to alleviate human suffering and promote
social welfare.
– Accomplish the same humanistic goals as social work practice.
It is compassionate, problem-solving, and practical.
• Professional Competitive Edge
– Why is this important?
• Social workers compete and collaborate with other professions
• Social workers need the ability to critically evaluate research, a
common language to discuss problems, and an understanding of
the research tools involved in the evaluation of practice.
Chapter 1
• Generation of Knowledge
– Ethical obligation to base our interventions on the
best available scientific information.
• Code of Ethics (Handout)
• Obligation to share knowledge with fellow
social workers about interventions that are
working
– Most reliable means for generating knowledge
Chapter 1
– As social workers, we have an ethical obligation to our
clients and profession to base our interventions on the best
available scientific information. We’ll be reading excerpts
from our Code of Ethics that are related to research as we
cover chapter four of the text. (Handout)
– If we are doing something that is working, we have an
obligation to share that information with our fellow social
workers. The use of a scientific approach is the most
reliable means for generating knowledge.
Critical Evaluation
• Critically Evaluate Research
– Scientific Soundness vs. pseudo research
– One of the major objectives of the course is to prepare you
to be critical consumers of research. You should be able to
critically evaluate the "scientific soundness" of a research
study and to distinguish it from "pseudo research. This is
why the sociologists teaching SOC 300 here at CMU
recommend that instructors have an assignment related to
the ability to critically consume research. In this section,
this is done by learning to writing an information abstract
and a critical appreciation the research methods used in a
quantitative and a qualitative journal article.
Critiquing Research
• Critiqueing research quality: The most important thing
about learning to critique research is to be able to
distinguish a strong from a weak study. Few studies that
make it to publication are going to be completely flawed,
but if you have study A that is strong that has conclusion
1, and study B that is weak and has conclusion 2, you
would presumably lean towards conclusion 1 on the
basis of the strength of the methods and data used in
reaching that conclusion, no? Don’t assume that
because it is published it is strong. Also, don’t just rely
upon the conclusion or abstract; it is important to
become familiar with the tables, the appendices, and the
data and other technical aspects.
Chapter 1
• Essential Skills for a social worker
– Critically evaluate trends or waves that move
through practice
– Understand what literature is relevant to our
practice
– Ability to “abstract” the results in a way that
makes sense and relays information to many
people
Evidence-Based Practice
• Evidence-based practice – using the best
scientific evidence available in deciding how to
intervene with individuals, families, groups or
communities (RB, p. 3)
– It is the “conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of
current best evidence in making decisions about the
care of individual” clients (RB, p. 4) (Sackett, et al.,
1997)
• Will guide us in what interventions NOT to use, but also give
indicators about what practice is best to use at the time
Steps of Evidence-Based
Practice (RB, p. 6-7)
– Step One = Question formulation
– Step Two = Search for the evidence
– Step Three = Critically appraise the relevant studies
• Two questions
– Was treatment outcome measured in a reliable, valid, and unbiased
manner?
– Was the experimental or quasi-experimental research design strong
enough to indicate whether it was the intervention that most plausibly
explains the variations in the client outcome or something else (i.e. due
to chance)?
– Step Four = Determine which evidence-based intervention is
most appropriate for your particular clients
– Step Five = Apply the evidence-based practice
– Step Six = Evaluation and feedback
Utilizing Research
• Utilizing research: Although we will cover ethics
in more detail later, it is important to realize there
are clear ethical responsibilities to stay abreast
of evidence about practice. But, there is no
specific requirement (yet) that interventions be
evidence based, that would be impossible, we’d
have to stop practicing! That is because by and
large social work today, and I would argue even
aspects of medicine, are based upon
interventions that haven’t been adequately
researched.
Important Characteristics
• There are a five important characteristics
which should be kept in mind by
practitioners who aspire to evidencebased practice.
First….
• First, you shouldn’t assume that you are up to
date on the most important and most valid
practice interventions, and furthermore, the fact
that there is some new, scientifically supported
intervention doesn’t mean it is right for your own
client. The bottom line in evidence based
practice is critical thinking about practice and the
goal of scientifically evaluating your own practice
effectiveness, in some way shape or form.
Second…
• Second, although one should consider the
experience associated with past practices and
respect the authority of experts and esteemed
colleagues, and while should consider the
traditions of an agency, ideally we should be
critical thinkers. And we shouldn’t think that
being a critical thinker is somehow making us
less compassionate. Yes, we have to be in
touch with our feelings and listen to our intuition,
but the heart can lead you astray sometimes just
like faulty thinking can!
Third…
• Third, evidence doesn’t trump values of the client. On
my website there is an article about the way in which
child welfare authorities in Texas tried to force additional
chemotherapy on a teenager client allegedly because
the evidence showed this was required, but client selfdetermination is something we take seriously in social
work. The fact that a particular intervention seems
supported by evidence doesn’t mean it should be
provided if it conflicts with a client’s values. Also, it is
important to realize that one can’t always expect to find
conclusive evidence about what interventions to use.
Fourth…
• Fourth, one intervention may be effect with
clients of one ethnic group and not with those of
another, and often research doesn’t fully control
for ethnicity. We should do everything we can to
base interventions on evidence from
computerized library searches, reading of
journals in the library, going to meetings, visiting
the Campbell collaboration website for which
I’ve provided a link, etc.. (Continued)
Fourth (continued)
• Fourth, one intervention may be effect with clients of one
ethnic group and not with those of another, and often
research doesn’t fully control for ethnicity. We should do
everything we can to base interventions on evidence from
computerized library searches, reading of journals in the
library, going to meetings, visiting the Campbell
collaboration website for which I’ve provided a link, etc.. But
the reality is that most social work interventions at the
present time can’t be considered evidence based. Nor can
we assume that all of the literature you find in such
searches is of high quality. That is exactly why we have to
learn to evaluate, critique and appraise the studies that are
most relevant to our practice. That’s why we have to
evaluate progress towards meeting treatment goals as one
important step in the process of evidence-based practice.
And evidence is something we seek not only for social work
practice but also in order to promote social welfare.
Fifth…
• In sum, practitioners engaged in evidence based practice
should be critical thinkers, should view trying to stay up to
date with the evidence as a lifelong commitment, should be
willing to challenge tradition and authority as guides to
practice, should be particularly skeptical of new and
unproven techniques with no research base, and should
generally think for themselves but on the basis of logic and
evidence about what their colleagues may contend is based
upon practice wisdom. On the other hand, social workers
can’t go it alone, it is very difficult for an individual to assess
their own practice without collaboration with others. It may
be that one reason agencies don’t evaluate their
effectiveness is that research findings often discover that
the services aren’t effective! It’s not that no interventions
are effective, and it is true you can discover problems with
any intervention, but one shouldn’t assume that just
because an agency is established, held in high esteem, etc,
that the services are effective.
Conclusion to Ch. 1
• To conclude, evidence-based practice means
striving to use the best scientific evidence
available in deciding how to intervene with
individuals, families, groups, or communities.
When we use reseasrch in this careful way, we
are acting consistently with the values and
mission of the profession, and failing to or
refusing to consider research findings does have
implications for how ethical we are as
professionals.