Research for Social Workers

An introduction to methods

Margaret Alston

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000256093
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Research for Social Workers has built a strong reputation as an accessible guide to the key research methods and approaches used in the discipline. Ideal for beginners, the book outlines the importance of social work research, its guiding principles and explains how to choose a topic area, develop research questions together with describing the key steps in the research process. The authors outline the principles of sampling, systematic reviews and surveys and interviews, provide guidance on evaluation and statistical analysis and explain how research can influence policy and practice. This new edition includes:
• an expanded discussion of rigour in qualitative research
• more detailed analysis of systematic reviews
• a new section on on-line surveys
• enhanced examination of action research including recent examples of action research programs
and
• an expanded section on evidence-based practice.Featuring practical examples and end-of-chapter exercises and questions, and using non-technical language throughout, this is a vital reference tool for both students and practicing social workers.

PART I
Beginning social work research

1
Social work research

This chapter introduces you to the dynamic, creative space that is social work research. As social work is an evolving, increasingly sophisticated profession, it requires a solid research base to advance and develop responsive and sustainable practice. However, first we want to reassure you that research is not all about numbers. If you are one of those social workers or students who have had unhappy experiences with mathematics, don’t despair! Social research is more about critical awareness, careful thinking and the ability to view situations from new perspectives than about numbers. In the twenty-first century, a whole range of approaches to research exist—some involving more mathematics than others. With the advent of computer software packages, it is more important to understand the thinking or logic behind the mathematics, and the theoretical perspectives behind the thinking, than to be able to calculate the numbers themselves.

In this chapter, we examine some of the different forms of research that exist and the power of the underlying beliefs that shape them. Quantitative, qualitative, emancipatory, feminist and postmodern influences on research methods are discussed. Each of these offers a range of possibilities for creative and exciting research for social workers. All can be used by social work researchers and are important for you to understand, not only because you may use them in your work, but also in order to understand the research undertaken by others. As you will see, these methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Indeed, much research today involves a mixture of methods—that is, researchers use a ‘multi-method’ approach, selecting aspects of different approaches that best suit their purposes. As this is a text for beginning researchers, we present the approaches separately so you can see how they have evolved and so we can introduce some of the debates that surround them.

We also consider some of the important political and ethical issues that surround research before moving on in later chapters to the ‘how to’ of different research approaches. First we discuss why, as social workers, we should study research and what social research is.

Why study research?

As social workers, you will want to know that your interventions are successful. Research provides us with evidence about the effectiveness of our practice; it can enhance our understanding of effective policies and practice, and it can advance socially just issues and socially inclusive practices (Flynn and McDermott 2016; Krysik and Finn 2013). As with other professions, we are being encouraged to develop ‘research-mindedness’, or the ability to inform our practice with research findings and to conduct our own research (Featherstone, Morris and White 2014; Humphries 2008; McLaughlin 2011).

Whether we realise it or not, most social workers are constantly doing research or research-like activities. Consider the following:

• A social worker wonders which counselling methods used by different workers in her team are most helpful to the young offenders they see on a regular basis.
• A community worker in a new job at a council has a brief to find out what the local community thinks of a planned development to build an industrial complex in some bushland containing a disused quarry.
• A worker in a church-based agency holds a regular group for homeless youth and suspects that many group members are facing similar issues and problems in their lives.
• A social welfare worker wants to know what effects the new aged-care respite-care service is having on families who are under stress.
• A worker in the disability field who has been asked to establish a new service for young adults wonders what life is like from the perspective of the young people, and what kind of services—if any—they would like the worker’s agency to provide.
• A worker sent to a crisis situation wants to evaluate which groups are most vulnerable and how each of the services and organisations in the field is responding to their needs.

All these situations require research skills if social workers are to systematically and effectively address the questions and issues they face. The bottom line is that if you are to make informed decisions or undertake carefully thought-through actions/interventions, you need research skills. More specifically, consider the following reasons for studying research.

Becoming an informed research consumer

Social workers are often confronted with government or inter-departmental reports in which research and statistics are quoted. If this is a familiar situation for you, you are probably uncomfortably aware that you may have taken such reports at face value and, because of a lack of research understanding, you may not have the ability to critique such reports. As Dudley (2011: 10) reminds us, we need to be ‘effective in consuming research studies that are pertinent to [our] professional work’. You should heed Rubin and Babbie’s (2016: 6) suggestion that we assess research findings by asking the following questions:

• Was the method used transparent and appropriate to this particular research question and research environment?
• Was the research carried out systematically and comprehensively to an acceptable standard according to the requirements of the chosen method?

Research studies can be biased or flawed for many different reasons, and you might not be able to detect them without a basic understanding of research methodology and the confidence required to assess these studies.

All social research has a political imperative. Some reports may take liberties in the way research is presented in order to achieve or to bolster a certain perspective. Some departments—for example, those keen to downsize—may disregard or under-report the success of certain programs. Some statistics may be used inappropriately or out of context to enhance an unsupported position. Likewise, some research reports might enhance positive findings in order to ensure continued funding. It is naive to think otherwise in an economic climate where large cuts have been made to welfare spending.

Consider also that when outside consultants are used by an agency or department to assess the organisation’s functions, you should be in a position to critically analyse their work and examine whether or not they have given you a fair appraisal. It is imperative that you become an informed practitioner, capable of dissecting the information on which decisions are being made about policies that affect your department or your programs.

Evidence-based practice

A second and equally important reason why you should have competent research skills is to allow you to justify your practice interventions in an informed way, based on research evidence. It is not enough to rely on your intuition—intuition is susceptible to bias, and may reflect your own values rather than client benefits. Increased accountability to funding bodies and to the people for whom the services are established requires workers to assess adequately what the people with whom we are working want and need, how our interventions are affecting people’s lives and how our programs and approaches can be improved. Increasingly, around the world, social workers are being expected to work in an evidence-based culture—that is, to know whether or not what they are doing is working.

There are a number of ways in which practice effectiveness may be assessed. For instance, as a practitioner you may be called on to examine the effect of certain interventions on a group of clients. You might also be required to justify your agency’s effectiveness by providing an evaluation of the use of its services and the effects of the services on the client group.

Again, you might be called on to show you are meeting the needs of a particular target group—that is, to undertake a needs analysis. Often practitioners keen to continue a new program are expected to evaluate the program in order that its effectiveness can be demonstrated—to ensure that it is meeting its objectives, that it is developing as intended and that it is producing desired outcomes (a program evaluation). The future development of the program may depend on well-constructed evaluation research. As well, maintaining—and indeed increasing—your funding level may depend on your analysis of research conducted to justify a service (a cost–benefit analysis).

It is also vital that you have the confidence and competence to act as a contributing partner in research projects. There are many occasions when your agency or department will conduct or contribute to a research project. Having an understanding of research methods will allow you to ensure that a social work perspective is part of the project.

Participating in the policy process

Increasing our research-mindedness also enables us to assess the impact of government social policies and to assist in constructing such policies. It is social work’s role as a profession to take a lead in the formulation of policy that affects the most vulnerable members of our community, and to criticise or support government policies. In the past, social workers have not been known for applying pressure effectively—at any level of government—to change or modify policies. As an example, cuts in welfare programs in many countries have not been matched by rich social work research assessing the consequences of a loss of services for vulnerable people.

With improved research skills, you will be on firmer ground in joining in the policy process—in commenting on current policies or evaluations of policy and developing a case for new or different policies.

Undertaking postgraduate education

One important outcome of studying research at the undergraduate level is that it will facilitate your entry into Masters and doctoral programs. This reason should not be discounted, as it is our experience that students may be reluctant to pursue postgraduate study because of their lack of knowledge about research and their fear of attempting a major research project. Yet we need such students in order to build a strong theoretical and research base, so we can upgrade the standing of our discipline. Of course, you must also be aware that studying research at the undergraduate level is a requirement of professional social work associations around the world, and so is a basic requirement for anyone wishing to attain a social work degree.

Developing social work knowledge and theory

A very important reason for studying research is to aid in the development of social work knowledge and theory. Having studied, or currently being involved in studying, social work, you would be aware that the development of social work theories and knowledge rests on the shoulders of practitioners who are able to test and evaluate their usefulness. We need these developments to come from social workers themselves, rather than from other disciplinary areas. For all these reasons and more, you will benefit from the study of research methods.

Practising in an ethically responsible manner

Social work codes of ethics around the world support ethical research practice. For example, the ethical codes of the British, US and Australian social work associations all contain detailed sections on how to undertake ethical research. We discuss this in more detail later in the chapter.

What is social research?

From the above discussion, it can be seen that many different types of research are used in the welfare field. The approaches you choose will depend on the purpose of the research, your background and beliefs, the agenda of the organisation funding the research and, increasingly, the perspectives of the people and/or programs being researched.

Examples of the variety of social research used in the welfare field

• Needs analysis
• Action research
• Outcome evaluation
• Cost–benefit analysis
• Secondary analysis
• Content analysis
• Client satisfaction surveys
• Quantitative surveys
• Qualitative in-depth interviewing

Nearly all forms of research involve a search for patterns or themes—ways of simplifying a mass of information into meaningful stories or relationships. Good research helps us to make links, gain insight into apparent contradictions, explore new territory and raise difficult questions. In the process of searching for patterns or themes, all types of research involve some form of measurement. In Chapters 2 and 3, we will explore the different types of measurement used in the process of translating broad research issues into researchable questions.

In the welfare field, almost all types of research are undertaken in order to make a decision or to take some action. If we went to the trouble and expense...