Social Work Research Methods. Reginald O. York
work practice is aided by science in many ways. When we assess our client’s behavior, we can review scientific studies on the nature of this behavior and gain a better understanding of it. When we consider the methods we will use to help our clients, we can examine evidence about the different approaches that have been undertaken for the achievement of the objective our client is pursuing. We can examine whether certain interventions are better than others with a given client population. And we can do much more with science as a guide to social work practice.
Social work can be defined in many ways. One such way was presented in the Dictionary of Social Work (Barker, 2003). This definition indicated that social workers improve the capacity of individuals for problem solving and coping, and help those in need to find resources. It also emphasizes the interaction of the individual and the environment. Social workers, according to this definition, work with individuals, families, and communities.
This definition is quite broad and encompasses the large number of tasks and functions that are part of the social worker’s job. Clinical social work is one type of work in this profession. A definition from the NASW (2005) refers to clinical social work as being related to the application of social work theory and methods to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychosocial dysfunction, including behavioral and mental disorders.
Clinical social work, therefore, is related to work with individuals and small groups with regard to problems we typically classify as related to mental health. Social workers are employed in a variety of settings, but the greatest number serve in direct practice roles. Those who serve in different roles are spread out among many functions, like education, supervision, administration, planning, and so forth. Because of these facts, this book will put more emphasis on research methods for direct practice.
Alison Miley (2016), a student in a Master of Social Work program, undertook a study of the effectiveness of a caregiver support intervention in the reduction of caregiver burnout for the caregivers of dependent elderly individuals. A review of the literature assisted this student in defining caregiver burnout as a state of physical and emotional exhaustion that affects the attitude of the caregiver with regard to the caregiver service. The effect of burnout is a reduction in the quality of care and the termination of the caregiver service.
Miley (2016) also learned from the literature that social support reduces much of the stress associated with the provision of caregiver service. It also improves morale and life satisfaction and enhances feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem. Thus, a support group experience was designed for a group of caregivers served by the agency. This support group was offered monthly for 2 hours. It not only provided a support group experience but also provided for the caregiver to have some time off from the caregiver service.
Miley (2016) designed an evaluation of this support group intervention by administering a scale that measured burnout. This scale was to be administered before the service began and at the end of 6 months of service. She noted from the literature that this scale had been tested and was found to be reliable. Her next step in this process would be to collect and analyze these scores to see if the one taken at the end of the service was significantly better than the one taken at the beginning.
As is evident from the example given above, science can inform various aspects of social work practice. Practice, with this group of clients, was informed by science with regard to the definition and analysis of the client’s target behavior, the search for an effective treatment, and how to measure success. After Miley collects data, she will need to be careful to allow her data to inform her conclusions.
The above example is of direct social work practice. If you are engaged in a program evaluation, there are many avenues you could take. You could examine whether the clients in your program have the characteristics that the program is supposed to serve. If the target population consists of people in poverty, you could collect data on the proportion of the clients in this program who live below the poverty line. You could examine the standards employed in this program as compared with official standards of good practice, such as the credentials of the staff who provide the service. You could examine the efficiency of certain services compared with that of similar agencies. What, for example, is the cost per client served by this agency as compared with other agencies? And, of course, you could examine outcomes for this program, such as the recidivism rate for confirmed cases of child neglect or the gain in feelings of support among those in the support group for victims of violence.
Common Sense and the Scientific Method
There are commonsense sayings that we can relate to scientific inquiry. They are offered below to show that science and common sense often have much in common, even though they originated in different ways. These similarities were presented in a previous text by the same author (York, 1997) and will be summarized here. Most of these statements come from commonsense sayings you may have heard.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel!
In the history of human inquiry, there has been an enormous amount of social research that has been undertaken. When we develop a research question, we usually find that there is a great deal of guidance that can come from an examination of the literature. Often, we will find a suitable answer to our question from this review and will not find it necessary to undertake a new study of the subject. Even when we do not find a suitable answer to our question, we will find much guidance from the literature on those aspects of the question that have been left more unanswered, and we can find assistance with the conceptualization of our study and the measurement of social phenomena required to answer our question.
It is not reasonable for us to expect a novice researcher to acquire an exhaustive review of the literature on a given subject. You will find a wide range of knowledge in places that are not well known or easily accessed. However, we can expect a novice researcher to delve into the most available and best known literature on the subject of inquiry, so that he or she can avoid repeating the mistakes of early work on the subject or failing to contribute anything of substance about the topic.
You will find that there is normally a wide array of research on any given subject. You will also find that there is usually a good deal of research that needs to be added. Often what is needed is the use of a different type of person as the study subject or a different way of conceptualizing or measuring the phenomena under inquiry. Thus, we are not likely to encounter a situation in which the research we wish to undertake is substantially redundant. The greater reason for examining the previous literature is to help us avoid the mistakes of the past. We might find that the way we wish to undertake our study has been done many years ago but has been found wanting in its ability to provide a good means of addressing our research question. Later research will be found to have corrected for these mistakes in research methods.
Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse!
research process follows the same basic path as good problem solving and critical thinking. If you are engaged in good problem solving, you will start with the identification of the problem and the objectives to be achieved by solving it. You will then identify methods for solving the problem. Following implementation of the solution, you will evaluate the results. One of the common pitfalls in basic human problem solving is for us to state the problem in terms of only one solution. In doing so, we are starting with a solution rather than with the identification of the human condition to be addressed.
Social research begins with the formulation of the problem resulting in the articulation of the research question. After the research question has been clearly identified, we determine the methods to be used in the pursuit of the answer to our question. One of the mistakes commonly made by the novice researcher is to begin a process of inquiry with a research instrument. It is not uncommon for a student of research to review a set of research instruments that measure certain psychological conditions and become especially interested in the use of a certain instrument in some kind of research.
The process of research conceptualized in this book starts with problem formulation and moves logically to research methodology, then to data collection and analysis, and ending with conclusions. Obviously, we should