Social Work Research: 2044

Abstract

Social work research is currently in the midst of a pervasive and portentous identity conflict that could pose existential problems vis-a-vis its future viability. The Digital Revolution and the Information Age it wrought have contributed significantly to the growth of social work science between 1984 and 2014. A contemporaneous Era of Emulation arose in social work, involving the widespread importation of research and statistical methods of more advanced social and health sciences (along with the researchers themselves in these fields) into schools of social work. Digital Age developments and Emulation Era benefits led to substantially increased production of social work research as compared with the past scientific generation, in the absence of significant growth in the number of social work earned doctorates. Still, much could be done to improve the quality and increase the quantity of social work research. This article presents a host of proposals to improve social work doctoral education, publication practices, research funding and infrastructure, and performance appraisal that could do much to advance the research mission of the profession. Worrisome developments in science generally—the replication crisis, fraud, problematic peer review and predatory publishing—with implications for social work research are also discussed. Current efforts to resolve social work’s identity crisis by defining a science of social work and identifying a set of Grand Challenges for social work research are critiqued.