Applied Research in Clinical Social Work Practice

Catalog description

This advanced research course builds on material covered in the foundation research course about the design, development, and execution of sound scientific practices. Emphasis will be placed on areas of sampling, measurement, and proposal writing. Topics will include practical sampling design, question formation, questionnaire/interview construction and format, scaling, critiquing proposals, budget development, budget justification, timelines, etc. Special attention will be given to randomized clinical trials (RCT), with the understanding that this is often not feasible in social work practice for ethical and practical reasons. As a result, selection bias is of substantial concern and how results are written and interpreted need to consider the impacts of selection. This class will focus on the application of research methodology to increase student's understanding of the tradeoffs and limitations of various designs within the parameters of a naturalistic setting. The importance of balancing rigorous scientific methods with ethics, practicality and feasibility to answer important questions for social work practice will be emphasized. This course will also focus on preparing students for their capstone experience and assignments will be tailored to student's individual projects.