Social work professionals must have a deep understanding of research methods to effectively serve their clients and communities. In this comprehensive guide, Christine Marlow emphasizes this link between research and practice. She focuses on the relevance of research methods within agency work, where most social work graduates will be employed, rather than strictly an academic setting. With a focus on generalist social work practice, she offers a clear and concise overview of the research process, including identifying research questions, selecting appropriate research designs, and analyzing data.Using real-world examples and case studies, Marlow helps readers understand how research can be used to inform social work practice and drive positive change in communities. With a strong emphasis on ethics and cultural competence, this text prepares social work students and professionals to conduct research that is both effective and socially responsible.

New edition of a guide which helps undergraduate students to understand the interconnectedness of research methods and everyday practice in generalist settings. Incorporates international examples and strikes a balance between positivistic and interpretist approaches. Emphasizes the role of diversity in the research process and discusses topics including choosing and developing the question; designing needs assessments; evaluation of programs and practice; collecting, organizing, and analyzing data; ethical concerns; and internet and computer resources. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Research Methods in Social Work helps students develop evidence-based practice by involving them in the process of research methodology. An innovative storytelling approach follows two students engaged in internships who go through the steps and tasks required to design a program and evaluate it in their practicum. Readers can see how realistic decisions arise in planning research and the activities necessary to support and conduct a research effort. Students learn the importance of comparison group designs, operationalizing variables, the use of valid and reliable measurements, and how these can affect the obtained results. Specific topics include research ethics, developing questionnaires and instruments, techniques for selecting client and community samples, and evaluating one's practice with single system designs. This edition features a new focus on understanding the statistical procedures, symbols, and findings commonly found in research publications. Instructor and student friendly, it contains self-review questions as well as potential assignments. Research Methods in Social Work prepares students to successfully consume social work research and lays the foundation for those who may want to create research during their academic and professional careers. For a look at the specific features and benefits of Research Methods in Social Work, visit cognella.com/research-methods-in-social-work-features-and-benefits.

This book describes an advanced generalist approach to direct social work practice with individuals, couples, families, and groups. Intervention paradigms that include psychodynamic, cognitive/behavioral/communications, experiential/humanistic, existential and transpersonal are presented as the four sources of social work.

The fourth edition of The Practice of Generalist Social Work continues to teach students to apply micro, macro, and mezzo social work skills. This new edition strengthens the connection between the three levels of practice and is fully updated to the 2015 EPAS. This edition also contains more illustrations of theory and more context for deciding which type of intervention is a good fit. Most chapters now open with a case study and continually refer back to the case to provide additional connections between theory and real-life practice. Each chapter also incorporates a link to a Grand Challenge of Social Work from the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, which shows the connection between social work and the most significant societal challenges of today. The Quick Guides within the text offer students guidance for their field experience and practice after graduation. The text also comes with a rich companion website that includes support materials and six unique cases that encourage students to learn by doing. Go to www.routledgesw.com to explore the cases and additional resources.

From the outset, the ultimate goal of Research Methods for Social Workers has been to serve as a research text that students would be able to understand and read in full. This third edition features important additions and changes to the original text (while maintaining its accessible style). The order of chapters is re-arranged to improve the flow of introducing and developing concepts of the research process, and the authors have included some much-needed information to meet the changing and evolving standards of social work education. At its core, this book is designed to bring complex ideas down to a level that can be grasped by someone with little to no knowledge of research methods - it is an invaluable resource for social work students and anyone who wishes to have a comprehensive introduction to research methods.

This book describes and discusses research methods for four alternative paradigms. These methodologies are organized according to the stages of a generalist model of social work practice. In my first book on Social Work Research Methods (Morris, 2006) I introduced the idea that social workers can carry out research in a more liberated fashion than is usually outlined in most research methods text books. I gave a philosophical, theoretical, historical and practical foundation for implementing research from four alternative perspectives: positivism, post positivism, critical theory, and constructivism. As well as introducing these paradigms, I integrated research methodologies with social work practice by translating the steps of the generalist, social work, practice model (engagement, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation, termination and follow up) into the research process (research focus, design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, and communication and dissemination of findings). I divided that book into four parts according to each paradigm with a fifth part that addressed cross cutting issues such as ethics, diversity, politics, and technology. This book updates and reorganizes these ideas and methods so that the flow of the discussion more closely parallels the flow of the research process. Instead of being organized according to the paradigms, it is organized according to the stages of the research process. Also, to assist with instruction on this new organization, there are additional resources that contain power point slides, full texts of example student studies using these approaches, test questions, and other supplementary materials. These can be accessed by contacting me at [email protected] I have made these changes because, after using my first book for a few years, I realized that starting with positivism and ending with constructivism has left students who are keen to learn about critical theory and constructivism "cooling their heels" for half of the course. Now, when I integrate the four paradigms throughout the course, I offer a continual comparison of those approaches as we learn about each stage of generalist research methods. Having tried this with drafts of this book, I can honestly say that classroom discussion has become more lively....and demanding.