The Social Work Student's Research Handbook

Dominique Moyse Steinberg is former Chair of the Social Group Work Sequence at Hunter College School of Social Work, USA, where she taught Social Group Work Practice for Group Work Majors, a Practice Lab, Research Methods, Basic, Advanced, and Program and Practice Evaluation, and an Integrative Writing Seminar. On the adjunct faculty as of 1986 Steinberg left HC in 1997 to teach at Smith College SSW until 2004, when she returned to HCSSW full time, assuming Chair of the sequence in 2005. A prolific writer with regular contributions to the professional literature, Steinberg has special interest in social work method, mutual aid, practice ethics and effectiveness, elder care, conflict resolution, and communication. On the Editorial Boards of Social Work With Groups and The Journal of Teaching in Social Work, in addition to being a member of AASWG since 1985 and Treasurer of AASWG since 2007, Steinberg is also a member of NASW and ACR and an ACSW Fellow. She currently teaches graduate research courses for Simmons College SSW online, advises thesis projects for Smith College SSW, offers elder-care resources on line (www.customeldercare.org), and is Director of Group Work Services for The Project for Team Conferencing and Social Group Work, Inc., a non-profit training agency in New York City (http://theteamconferenceandgroupworkproject.org).

Introduction 1. Social Work Research: Context and Politics 2. Ethics 3. Evidence and Professional Social Work Practice 4. Problem Formulation: What to Study 5. Using the Literature 6. Working from Questions or Hypotheses 7. Variables 8. Assumptions 9. Design Options 10. Exploratory Design 11. Descriptive Design 12. Experimental Design 13. Correlational Design 14. Plausible Alternative Explanations 15. Practice Evaluation 16. Program Evaluation 17. Working Toward Reliability and Validity 18. Sampling 19. Data Collection 20. Data Analysis: An Overview 21. Qualitative Data Analysis: Making Sense of Words 22. Quantitative Data Analysis: Making Sense of Descriptive Statistics 23. Quantitative Data Analysis: Making Sense of Inferential Statistics 24. Tests of Statistical Significance 25. Wrapping It Up