Why do we research?
Why is research a core value in social work and social work practice?
To gain proper knowledge necessary to give our clients the most efficacious resources possible with the most evidence.
- provides a framework for practice
-essential tool for building knowledge that can be utilized in practice
-allows social workers to evaluate own practice
A careful and deliberate decision making process whereby we collect and analyze information about social work clients and social issues in order to answer important questions about and inform social work practice and social policy.
What is the proper format of a basic research question?
Is "A" associated with "B" in population "C"?
What are the important pieces of informed consent?
•Written and clear
•Signed by participants
•Nature, extent, and duration of participation
•Full disclosure of risks involved through participation
•Full disclosure of benefits to the participant through participation
•No penalty for participants who decline to participate
•The right to withdraw from participation at any time without consequence
•Assurance of privacy and confidentiality
•Safety from harm explained
•Proper debriefing and explanation of the study following participation
•Open offers for supportive services following participation
What is conceptualiztion?
–Applying a definition to a general, abstract idea
–Moving from abstract or general ideas to a specific and concrete definition
What is a population and what is a sample?
population: every single person we are trying to generalize findings to.
sample: a subset of a population that is observed for the purposes of making inferences about the nature of the total population
What are the three basic categories of research we have discussed in this course?
Exploratory/Descriptive
Explanatory
Evaluation
What is the difference between an independent and dependent variable?
DV: the variable being changed or explained by an independent variable
IV: A variable that can explain or that causes variation in another variable
What does 'voluntary participation' mean?
•Consistent with social work’s values on self-determination
•Participants should have legal capacity to give consent
•Participants should be situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice
•Participants should not be subjected to force, fraud, deceit, duress, or other ulterior motive when giving consent
•Participants should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of elements in the study to make an informed decision
•Children, prisoners, pregnant women, and those who may lack the capacity to give consent are special and protected cases
What is operationalization?
•In quantitative research, we must first translate those variables into observable terms
•Movingfrom a nominal definition to a precise procedure for measuring an concept
•Involves identifying how information will be collected
•What that information represents and to what degree it represents that concept
•How we choose to operationally define a variable can greatly influence our research findings
What is generalizability?
•Called “External Validity”
•The sample chosen for a study represents the population from which it was sampled
•Allowsthe researcher to use the findings discovered in the sample and assume that the findings are consistent with the population from which the sample was drawn
define subjective and objective knowledge.
subjective: personal opinion
objective: lack of personal opinion, more group consensus on what is right. Factually based.
What does "probabilistic relationship" mean?
•Most explanatory research uses a probabilistic model of causation
•If A occurs, B is more likely to occur
•In other words, we speak in terms of probability, not certainty
•Just because Intervention A is more likely to be effective than Intervention B does not guarantee that Intervention A will be effective with your client
What is the difference between anonymity and confidentiality?
•Confidentialityinvolves keeping personal answers private and protected
•
•Anonymityinvolves removing all possible identifying information from a participant’s responses such as there is no reasonablemanner in which a respondent could be identified from information provided during the study
NEVER USE ANONYMOUS
WHEN YOU MEAN CONFIDENTIAL!
•Exceptionsincluding disclosures of harming self, harming others, and mandatory reporting of suspicions of child abuse or neglect
Give me the 4 levels of measurement and their definitions.
nominal - categorical - named categories only
Ordinal - categorical - named categories that are ordered
Interval - continuous - spaces between (the intervals) are equal
Ratio - continuous - spaces between are equal and there is a zero with meaning.
What is the key component of probability sampling?
randomization
DAILY DOUBLE (800 POINTS):
Why do we need to evaluate research quality and our current practice?
•To find out what works, and more importantly prevent harm to clients
•Continually improve current practices, even if current practice is effective
•Critically appraise the claims of authority figures, tradition, ANDresearchers
Define inductive and deductive reasoning.
Inductive:
–Social work researcher begins with observations of a social phenomena
–Observations and connections between concepts imply a theory
–Theory developed to explain observations
Deductive:
–Begin with a theory about a social issue or phenomena
–Develop hypotheses based on explanations provided by theory
–Gather data about individuals using theory and meaning to test hypotheses
–Analyze the data and assess hypotheses
–Generalize back to the theory
What is an Institutional Review Board and why are they essential to research?
Group of experts in research that review and critique research proposals to see if they propose more than minimal risk to participants.
•Studies involving human subjects need to obtain approval from an independent panel of professionals called an Institutional Review Board (IRB)
•IRBs became widespread during the 1970s as result of federal legislation and public concern with the ethics of biomedical and behavioral research
DAILY DOUBLE: 800 POINTS
Define reliability and validity
RELIABILITY: ability of a measure to produce a consistent result
VALIDITY: ability of a measure to measure what it is purported to measure
What are the types of probability sampling?
simple random
systematic random
stratified random
cluster
Describe how social work research and practice evolved together.
Evidence-Based Practice
•Using best available empirical evidence with professional experience and client values and preferences
•Ethical and supported practice through:
–Knowledge of research evidence base and literature
–Clinical expertise
–Client preferences and values
•Important for social work as an applied social science and in Practice-Based Research
Define and describe the criteria necessary to infer causality.
1.) Temporal precedence
2.) correlation
3.) no alternative explanations
Give me 5 examples of where Zimbardo went wrong during the Stanford Prison Experiments.
- sampling bias
-took part in own research
-no voluntary participation
-no informed consent
-no protection of human subjects
What are the major threats to internal validity?
History
Maturation
Testing
Instrumentation
Statistical Regression
Selection bias
Ambiguity regarding the direction of causal inference
What are the types of non-probability sampling?
convenience
purposive
quota
snowball