First Principles of Practice Research

Abstract

SUMMARY Critics of applying conventional quantitative research methods to the problems of social work practice research have ignored the considerable progress which has been achieved during the past decade in scientifically documenting the effectiveness of social services. A set of First Principles of Practice Research is outlined for use by researchers in the design and conduct of practice research, and for use by the consumers of research to evaluate the methodological rigour of practice experiments. The advocates of qualitative research are urged to provide the profession with similar positive examples of research on the outcomes of social work practice, and to develop explicit guide-lines for the conduct of qualitative studies. The past decade has been an encouraging one for social work practition ers concerned about the empirical support for the provision of social work services. The early 1970s witnessed the appearance of three independently conducted summative reviews of controlled experimental studies of social work practice (Fischer, 1973; Mullen and Dumpson, 1972; Segal, 1972). Each review concluded that social work practice had yet to demonstrate a positive impact on problems of personal or social importance, and moreover, reported that some evidence indicated a deleterious impact among clients receiving social services. A laudable outcome of the concerns generated by these evaluative reviews was an increasing awareness of the need for the profession of social work to demonstrate its effectiveness, and that such outcome studies required a