Teaching Research and Practice Evaluation Skills to Graduate Social Work Students

Abstract

Objective: The authors examined outcomes of a graduate course on evaluating social work practice that required students to use published research, quantitative measures, and single-system designs in a simulated practice evaluation project. Method: Practice evaluation projects from a typical class were analyzed for the number of research references cited, type of client, goals or problems, measures, interventions, single-system designs, and outcomes. Results: More than half of the students conducted selfimprovement projects monitored with self-report measures, and goals or problems selected and interventions applied varied widely. More than 80% of the projects were evaluated with simple AB designs, over 45% of which were associated with statistically significant improvements and an additional 43% showed gains that did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions: Results suggest that students can be taught techniques and skills needed to formulate interventions derived from published research and to evaluate effects of these interventions using single-system designs.

The Coffee Project Revisited: Teaching Research Skills to Forensic Chemists

“…The writing tests in sessions 3 and 12 were designed to specifically target a subset of skills needed by students before they write their first journal article, and reflect the fact that students can struggle with academic writing if their previous experience is limited to lab reports. , The journal paper assessment using a template from a real publication has been used successfully in previous studies. , Students had learned to use software such as EndNote for referencing and ChemDraw to produce publication-quality figures for their articles in a previous module.…”

“…1 Research-based experiments have also been shown to impart a greater understanding of the nature of science to students, compared to traditional teaching experiments, 2 and research experiences are thought to 30 increase both retention and graduation rates. 3 Traditionally, students developed their research skills during a placement or project in an academic research group via a kind of peer-guided osmosis.…”

“…13,19 The journal paper assessment using a template from a real 280 publication has been used successfully in previous studies. 29,30 Students had learned to use software such as EndNote for referencing, and ChemDraw to produce publicationquality figures for their articles in a previous module.…”

Evaluation Capacity Building

“…Social workers select and use appropriate methods for evaluation of outcomes; critically analyze, monitor and evaluate intervention processes and outcomes; and apply evaluation findings to improve practice effectiveness. (CSWE, 2013, p. 7) There have been attempts, although few and far between, to propose effective ways of teaching program evaluation to social work students and to evaluate the short-term impact of such efforts on students (Baker, Hudson, & Polio, 2011;Wong & Vakharia, 2012). The impact on the professional practice of students who attended such courses has, to the best of our knowledge, not been evaluated.…”