Social Work Research Methods. Reginald O. York
to quantitative measurement. The reader examines concepts such as measurement error, reliability, and validity and examines tools for addressing these issues such as the alpha coefficient. Also discussed are tips for finding a measurement tool and tips for developing your own measure. A concept given more emphasis in this book than others is that of practical significance. The reader sees how a study result can be of statistical significance without being of practical significance. Perhaps the conclusion in this situation would be that the trivial gain for the clients in this study is not explained by chance, but it is only trivial, so we did not achieve what we expected.
Chapter 14: Selecting a Research Design for a Group Evaluation Study
This chapter focuses on the choice of a research design when you are working with a group of clients who are receiving a common intervention and are being measured by a common instrument. The choice of a research design begins with a review of those things most likely to explain client growth independent of treatment. Readers are encouraged to realistically think of such explanations (i.e., threats to internal validity) that should be of special concern and to select an appropriate research design that controls for this influence. The reader reviews the group research designs (e.g., one-group pretest–posttest design, comparison group design) that are most likely to be employed by frontline socials workers in the evaluation of practice. These group research designs are presented according to the threats to internal validity that are addressed by the design.
Chapter 15: Selecting a Research Design for a Single Client
The choice of a research design for the evaluation of service for a single client is the focus of this chapter, which builds on the knowledge about the function of the design presented in the previous chapter. The reader examines the single-subject designs most likely to be employed by frontline social workers in the evaluation of practice, organized according to the threats to internal validity that are addressed by the design. A unique design described here is the limited AB design, where the researcher is only able to measure the client once before treatment begins, and then several times during the treatment period. This design is feasible for most social workers, whereas the traditional AB single design is not.
Chapter 16: Analyzing Data and Drawing Conclusions
In this chapter, the reader examines the basic concepts with regard to the analysis of descriptive data, explanatory data, and evaluative data. Various descriptive statistics are described with regard to data, such as the frequency, the mean, the median, and so forth. Inferential statistics are examined with regard to the testing of the hypothesis in research, including the one-sample t test, the paired t test, the independent t test, the chi-square test, and the binomial test. An example is given of data analysis using an Internet website.
Chapter 17: Analyzing Qualitative Data
This chapter provides an opportunity for the reader to engage in the analysis of qualitative data gathered from a survey. One protocol for content analysis of qualitative data is employed in this data analysis exercise, so the reader can get an experience in the analysis of qualitative data using only one of many forms that could be used to do so. The protocol includes reference to levels of coding, bracketing, enumeration, saturation, and credibility assessment.
Preface
This book is designed to help students of the human service professions to gain the ability to use research to inform practice and to conduct their own research, with an emphasis on the evaluation of practice. It is written for the beginning and intermediate students in social work research. It begins with no assumption of knowledge of research methods and takes the readers beyond the basic level of understanding to a level of competence in the execution of the various tasks of the research study.
When students complete this book, they will know how to inform their practice by reviewing the research of others. They will know, for example, how to determine the extent to which a social work intervention has been shown to be effective in the treatment of a given target behavior.
On completion of this book, readers will also know how to evaluate their own practice. There are a number of research questions that are relevant to this endeavor. For example, was their support group intervention effective in the improvement of the self-esteem of the at-risk youth in the group? Was their cognitive–behavioral therapy effective in the reduction of the depression for a group of adults they served? Did their homeless clients find a home faster than the homeless people in their shelter who did not have the special strengths-based case management services that they implemented?
Learning by Doing
The key distinction of this text is the theme of learning by doing, which refers to putting knowledge into practice. My decades of teaching social work research at more than one university has taught me to agree with Confucius. He said that what you are told, you will forget; what you are shown, you will remember; but what you do, you will understand.
There are several features of this book that execute this major theme. For example, each chapter begins with a vignette that illustrates the basic content of the chapter. The vignette explains how one social worker made use of the knowledge that is addressed in the chapter.
Another feature is that priority is given to themes of practical use, such as the steps in the use of systematic reviews of evidence, where to find published tools for measuring client progress, and how to use the Internet for the analysis of data. In many of these instances, students are guided through a step-by-step process that makes the task very clear.
The most important mechanism for executing the learning-by-doing theme, however, is that each chapter has a practice exercise that calls on the reader to apply the knowledge gained from the chapter. One of these exercises asks the reader to conduct a study of the relationship between stress, social support, and life satisfaction using data from members of the research class. The class completes the survey and each student analyzes the data using a convenient Internet website. They report the results and offer their conclusions. Another practice exercise calls on students to report their assessment of how well a familiar agency evaluates need, service process, and client outcome.
Many of the current research texts on the market offer myriad concepts with little step-by-step guidance on how this understanding can be applied. These texts make the improper assumption that students can apply their abstract understanding of concepts without any step-by-step guidance on the research task. For example, they will be taught about measurement reliability and validity but will not be given guidance on how to select a good published measurement scale for their study. They may be taught about the nature of the systematic review of evidence but not be given instructions on how to examine a given systematic review. These other texts will teach students about the nature of statistical tests but will not give them step-by-step guidance on analyzing their data using the Internet. In other words, the assumption of these alternative texts is that students will figure things out for themselves, in their own unique ways, just how to apply what they have learned. This is a faulty assumption in my opinion, based on my experience as a research teacher in social work.
The User-Friendly Approach
This book is designed to be user-friendly, which means it has special features that will help students understand the meaning of concepts and retain their learnings. For example, each chapter places emphasis on essential concepts and techniques rather than on esoteric knowledge. While technical terms are presented, more common phrases are used to help students to remember the meaning of them.
One of the features of this text is that each chapter ends with a review section that contains discussion questions, a list of key learnings, a chapter quiz, and a chapter glossary. These items help the students review the content of the chapter and focus on key themes.
The discussion questions help the students reflect on critical concepts in the chapter. Their answers can be a good vehicle for class discussion. The listing of key