In addition, there is an emphasis on how the parts of the research process fits together. For example, the sampling procedures helps the researcher draw conclusions about the generalization of study results; the definition of the target behavior helps the researcher select the proper tool for measurement; the selection of a research design helps in the drawing of conclusions about the extent that the treatment should be credited with causing the clients’ improvement. These mechanisms help the student understand both the what and the why of research procedures.
Learning is also facilitated through the use of terms that are easier to remember. For example, the reader is repeatedly reminded that the concept of threats to internal validity refers to alternative explanations of client outcome. Students are not as likely to remember what is meant by “threats to internal validity” without this help. Wherever possible, this text employs user-friendly language such as “credibility” as an overall category for the concepts of reliability and validity.
One chapter in this book presents the connections between common sayings in everyday life and research ideas. One example is “Don’t put the cart before the horse!” In other words, be sure to execute the research process in proper order. Another is “Two heads are better than one.” This saying is relevant to the establishment of the credibility of measurement tools when they are subject to comparisons to other tools. If both tools are correlated, you have evidence of two heads being better than one.
A final feature of this book that facilitates learning is the repetition of concepts in different contexts with later versions being more complex than earlier discussions. This should help the students always be able to see the forest for the trees. Students are introduced to concepts in simple fashion in the early chapters and are given more depth of knowledge in later chapters. For example, the student will have learned basic lessons about sampling in the early chapters before they encounter this theme at a higher level in a later chapter. They will already understand how the research design addresses the issue of causation in evaluative research before they reach the chapter that discusses myriad different research designs. They will understand the concept of chance in the very first chapter of this text, but will return to it later when they examine data statistically.
Organization of This Book
There are three major goals of this book. The first goal is to equip students with competence in the application of research tasks that are congruent with the nature of scientific inquiry. For example, you are not supposed to conduct research to prove a point; instead, you conduct it to discover the truth. Most important, you learn to appreciate the contribution of science to your understanding of social reality, with special attention to evidence with regard to social work practice. Furthermore, the social worker must undertake research with attention to ethics in the use of human subjects in research.
The second goal is to give students the ability to conduct the tasks of various types of research. For example, a social worker as researcher may conduct a study to describe a study sample (descriptive research) or to explain phenomena by examining the relationships between variables (explanatory research). They may evaluate a service (evaluative research) or explore the unknown (exploratory research). With regard to each type of research, the student goes through each of the four phases of the research process at a basic level.
The third goal is to equip students with the skills necessary for conducting the major phases of the research process at the intermediate level. This is accomplished by giving more details and tools for the research tasks. First, students learn how to engage in the development of a knowledge on which their research is founded. Developing the methods for finding the answer to their research questions is a second phase of research. They learn how to analyze data as they undertake the third phase of research. Then they review how to draw conclusions, the final phase of this process.
These three goals serve as the guides for the three parts of this book. In the first part, the student reviews the fundamentals of science that help them achieve the first goal. The second part acquaints students with the necessary tasks in the development of the methods for conducting the research study. In the third part, the student learns how to analyze data while the final section focuses on the conclusions that should be drawn based on the data analyzed. These three sections are described below.
Part 1: The Fundamentals of Science and Social Work Practice
In Chapter 1, students face challenges in the demonstration of the spirit of scientific inquiry. They learn, for example, that research is a process of discovery rather than justification. The scientific researcher does not cherry-pick information to prove a point. Instead, the researcher examines information in a systematic and objective manner and lets the data drive the conclusions. The practice exercise for this chapter calls on the student to engage in a dialogue with someone about whether the full moon affects unusual behavior, with contributions from research on this theme. The objective is to learn how people do or do not embrace science as a way of knowing.
The student learns about the four phases of social work research in Chapter 2. Also included in these lessons of this chapter is how research can be classified into four ways based on the general purpose of the study (description, explanation, evaluation, or exploration). In the practice exercise of this chapter, students demonstrate competence in conceptualizing the four phases of research work with regard to a study they might undertake on the evaluation of their practice.
In Chapter 3, students learn how to apply the key principles of research ethics and cultural competence with regard to a research study they would like to undertake. For example, how will the issue of privacy be accommodated? Also, how will cultural competence be addressed in each phase of the research process?
Chapter 4 focuses on evidence-based practice. Students learn the nature of evidence-based practice and how to find evidence for their own research pursuits. The practice exercise for this chapter asks the students to review a specific systematic review of evidence and answer a set of questions about what was learned from the review.
Part 2: Conducting Different Types of Social Work Research
The second part of this book gives students competence in conducting various types of research, including the use of convenient Internet websites for the analysis of data of various kinds. In Chapter 5, they examine the use of the social survey with an exercise on the design of a client satisfaction survey for a familiar agency. The content of Chapter 6 shows how to conduct descriptive research with emphasis on the definition and measurement of variables, and the employment of descriptive statistics. The exercise in this chapter asks students to collect and examine data on the characteristics of the good work manager, with lessons on sex-role stereotypes. They are given step-by-step instructions on how to statistically analyze data using an Internet site.
Chapter 7 gives the student competence in conducting explanatory research where the relationships between variables are examined. This chapter introduces the student to inferential statistics. The exercise for this chapter calls on students to collect and examine data on the relationships between stress, social support, and life satisfaction. They submit that data for statistical analysis using an Internet site. In Chapter 8, students learn how to conduct evaluative research. The content of this chapter focuses on the identification of target behavior, the selection of the intervention, the measurement of