Research Methods for Social Work (Empowerment Series)

by Allen Rubin

might unintentionally rely on the least representative but most outspoken and demonstrative supporters or opponen...

journalists whose jobs are to deliver editorials and opinion pieces, not to re...

colored by their predi...

intent of such writing is not to provide a balanced approach but to persuade readers to share th...

popular media also include fictional movies and television shows that can influence what we thi...

many folks get much of their information from the Internet. Despite the wonders of the Internet and the immediate availability of a tremendous array of useful information therein, informatio...

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that a...

despite the tremendous value of the Internet and the fact that we can learn many valuable things from popular media, they do not provide an adequate alternative to scientific sources of knowledge.

Scientific inquiry safeguards against the potential dangers of relying exclusively on tradition, authority, common sense, or the popular media as the sources of knowledge to guide social work practice.

helps safeguard against errors we might make when we attempt to build our practice wisdom primarily through our own practice experiences and unsystematic observations.

Scientific inquiry also involves critical thinking so that we can spot fallacies in what others may tell us about their practice wisdom o...

common errors and fallacies you should watch out for and at some of the ways science guar...

When we look for patterns among the specific things we observe around us, we often assume that a few similar events a...

tendency to overgeneralize is greatest when the pressure is highest to arrive at ...

overgeneralization also occurs casually in the abse...

misdirect or impede ...

Scientists guard against overgeneralization by committing themselves in advance to a sufficiently large sample of observations

replication of inquiry provides another safeguard.

replication basically means repeating a study and then checking to see if the same result...

study may be repeated under slightly vari...

when a social work researcher discovers that a particular program of service in a particular setting is effecti...

Is the program equally effective for all types of clients? For both men and women? For both old and young? Among all ethnic groups? Would it be just as effective in other agency settings? This extension of the inquiry seeks to find the breadth and t...

independent replications by other researchers extend...

One danger of overgeneralization is that it may lead to sele...

Once you have concluded that a particular pattern exists and developed a general understanding of why, then you will be tempted to pay attention to future events and situations that correspond with the pattern. ...

overgeneralization can lead to selective observation and selective observation can le...

Racial and ethnic prejudices depend heavily on selective observation for their persistence.

selective observation occurs among all of us, not just in people with distasteful prejudices.

Social work practitioners who have great compassion for their clients and who do the best they can to help their clients, for example, commonly engage in selective observati...

The practitioner trained to interpret problems in terms of family communication dynamics is apt to look vigilantly for signs of potential communication problems and then magnify the role those ...

that practitioner is likely to overlook other dynamics or perhaps undere...

selectively observed indicators of positive outcome and overlooked other indicators that might have cast doubt on how much the new interv...

a research design will specify in advance the number and kind of observations to be made as a basi...

A second safeguard against selective observation in scientific inquiry also works against m...

If you overlook something that contradicts your conclusion about the way things are, then your colleagues will notice it and bring it to your attention. That’s a service that scientists provide to ...

suppose their answers are the opposite of what you expected—that is, suppose they express worse feelings after entering treatment than before.

“The reason for the negative findings is that before entering treatment, the women were unconsciously protecting themselves with the psychological defense mechanism of denial. They expressed better feelings before treatment because they were refusing to face their dangerous and deplorable situations. Our treatment helped overcome some of this denial and helped them get more in touch with an unpleasant reality they need to face in order to begin trying to change. Therefore, the more ‘negative’ responses after entering treatment are really more ‘positive’! It is good that they are beginning to recognize what bad shape they were in;

example we’ve just described is sometimes called ex post facto hypothesizing, and it’s perfectly acceptable in sc...

The argument you proposed clearly suggests that you need to test your hypothesis about the program’s effectiveness in new ways ...

The line of reasoning doesn’t prove that your hypothesis is correct, only that there’...

Later observations may prove its accuracy. Thus, scientists often engage in deducing information, and they follow up on their deduc...

Our understanding of events and conditions is often of special psychologic...

we link our understandings of how things are to the image of ourselves ...

any disproof of these understandings tends to make us look stupid, gullible, ...

we commit ourselves all the more unshakably to our understanding of how things are and create a formidable barrier to further inqu...

ego involvement in understanding is commonly encountered in so...

practitioners see it in some of their clients who may blame others or external circumstances beyond their control for their difficulties rather than accept responsibility and face up to the wa...

Practitioners are less likely to see the way their own ego involvement...

Rather than scientifically reexamining the effectiveness of our own ways of practicing, which we may like because we are used to them and have special expertise in them, we may tenaciously engage in selective observation, ex post facto hypothesizing, and other efforts to explain...

Social workers who conduct evaluation research frequently confront this form of ego involvement when their evaluations fail to support the effica...