Live and Let Live

I have been reading the all-time classic Rubin and Babbie text “Essential Research Methods for Social Work (2016)” and within it there is a long discussion on Ethical Research and Politics. Additionally, I have been reflecting on and critiquing the ethical considerations of various proposals in graduate Social Work. Good research is typically designed to produce valid and reliable results, but in some cases, the methods used to achieve these goals can raise ethical concerns, particularly when it comes to the use of placebos and deception. Deception can also be used in research to control for the placebo effect. However, it can be ethically problematic if it involves intentionally misleading participants or withholding information that may be important for their decision to participate in the study or to consent to particular procedures. To address these ethical concerns, research studies involving placebos or deception should be designed with careful consideration of the potential r...

To approach the clinical process as a study is one way to ensure that a social worker's interventions are having a positive effect. In previous classes we have seen that taking an evidence-based approach is a provident practice that not only leads to better care but better results. Because clinical social work often involves one-on-one practice, single-subject designs are often used by social workers to track the efforts; it is much better and more effective than gut instinct or practice without feedback. Therefore, it should be apparent that taking an evidence-based approach to clinical practice should lead to, if not better results, better and more informed decision making or responsiveness to therapies for a client's case. A single case can be defined as a single individual or family, couple, or group and this is the first biggest difference between a SSD and a research study, but there are more similarities than there are differences. For example, step one to a single...

Though I do not yet have experience as a social work practitioner, I am beginning to see what it takes to do the right job. I have learned that it takes commitment, compassion, but beyond that, and very importantly, it takes evidence-based practice. While I know I have lots yet to learn, I can apply some of my earlier lessons from the field of education to my social work practice. One of those biggest lessons would be that collecting data and analyzing it ends up saving so much more time than it requires. I have seen how, even with just minimal initial effort, record keeping and research pay huge dividends. When I got my first tutoring jobs in elementary math, I figured that first and second grade math would be a cinch but it turned out that it was not as easy as I expected and that supporting such young children required many new strategies and ideas than I came equipped with. Thus, after unsuccessfully trying and trying to encourage seven and eight year olds to learn to multiply wi...

My Thoughts about Writing Literature Reviews To answer the titular question, "do you have what it takes to write an effective literature review?" one needs to stop guessing and start doing! Whether or not you can write a good or effective literature review is not decided before writing one in the first place. To better inform me on how I need to stop conjecturing and to start practicing I took a look at the preamble of the fourth edition of Machi & McEvoy's classic; "The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success". I can't wait to see if the book as interesting as it sounds! To start, I picked up the text, which immediately discusses how even if literature review is a complex project, it can be split up into smaller steps. As the title, preface, and introduction suggest, I'm going to go on a journey through six of these steps. The text book considers the novice wishing to learn and offers practical guidance for the “first timer” to be successful. A...