Sample Solution

Select a particular research strategy and fundamentally assess its handiness to inquiring about in/for social work.

It isn’t unordinary for professionals and understudies to get on edge about the possibility of undertaking social research. The notoriety of research is troublesome, mechanical and a monotonous arrangement of customs that are connected to unappealing logical or target schedules and assignments which at last outcome in remote, dry and even unapproachable just as impervious, reports, books, and scholastic papers. Albeit testing, most above.

Select a specific research method and critically evaluate its usefulness to researching in/for social work.

It is not unusual for practitioners and students to become anxious about the prospect of undertaking social research. The reputation of research is difficult, mechanical and a tedious set of rituals that are linked to unappealing scientific or objective routines and tasks which ultimately result in remote, dry and even aloof as well as impenetrable, reports, books, and academic papers. Although challenging, most forms of qualitative research are accessible, rewarding, relevant, and at times, enlightening. Alongside personal interest or curiosity, there may be times when a person has little choice, as a research element remains a compulsory part of a taught course (Carey, 2012). Many of the core skills required for qualitative research will have been developed or mastered by many students and practitioners. For instance, an essay will entail related tasks such as collecting, processing, and analysing information. Furthermore, social work practitioners conduct interviews in assessments or write reports for funding panels or reports for court proceedings. Moreover, qualitative research is learned just as much through direct experience as through study and can help promote our imagination and sense of creativity or curiosity and the urge to know more (Shaw, 2012).
According to the Social Work Policy Institute (2010), social work research informs professional practice. Social work research allows the professional to assess the needs and resources of people in their environments, evaluate the effectiveness of social work services in meeting people’s needs, demonstrate relative costs and benefits of social work services, advance professional education in light of changing contexts for practice, and understand the impact of legislation and social policy on the clients and communities served. In the field of social work, practitioners must remain well-informed regarding any research advances in their respective areas. Advocates of evidence-based practice expect social workers to engage in practice informed by the best available evidence. Research studies conducted through the lens of qualitative studies provide important contributions to the social work knowledge base. In many cases, these studies can represent the best available research regarding emerging problems or application of evidence to diverse populations (Lietz & Zayas, 2010). Qualitative research continues to be a valuable approach in social work practice. In 1994, the Council on Social Work Education required that qualitative research methods be taught in all accredited bachelor’s and master’s level social work programs, a requirement renewed in the Education Policy and Accreditation Standards in 2002 and again in 2008 (Drisko, 2013).
A universal definition of does not exist. The literature of social science and applied professional fields, such as interpretive, naturalistic, constructivist, ethnographic, and fieldwork are variously employed to designate the broad collection of approaches that are simply qualitative research (Hunt, 2004). Qualitative research approaches allow researchers to connect with people in deeply personal ways that enable the persons being researched to express the rich meanings of their thoughts, actions, and events in their lives. The two main types of qualitative methods, in-depth interviews and observation, brings researchers into close contact with the lived experiences of the people being researched. These interactions frequently involve personal topics that can evoke powerful emotions for both the researcher and informants. These evocative situations provide researchers the opportunity to explore the deep meanings of the phenomena as well as develop new theories and understandings that have rich and nuanced dimensions. Therefore, the knowledge gained is not only information that passes through the central processors of the brain, but also arises from our hearts and deeply held emotions. Therefore, understandings gained via the engagement of heart and mind have an immediate potential to connect to the hearts and minds of audiences. This immediacy can be beneficial to persons who are members of social work constituencies such as maltreated children, poor people of colour, homeless families, people with mental illnesses and frail elderly who are disenfranchised from the political system and whose voices are regularly suppressed within the arenas where their fates are debated and shaped: public opinion, legislatures, and social service agencies (Gilgun & Abrams, 2002).
The commitment of qualitative social work practice to the empowerment of the disenfranchised population is commendable. Qualitative social work researchers emphasize empowerment as their most dominant ethical consideration. Yet, empowerment is often an exclusive ethical principle. The exclusiveness of the empowering research trend can be understood from two contemporary perspectives: the nature of social work and the lack of a specific code of ethics and training in ethics for qualitative social work researchers. Most social work is not basic research. Instead, social work is an ideology committed discipline in which practitioners and researchers have a duty to promote justice and improve welfare. The concept of empowerment allows social work researchers, particularly qualitative researchers, to work towards these goals via their research. Furthermore, by empowering research participants and related populations, social work researchers can bridge a gap that might exist between their value commitments as social workers and a lack of training on research ethics. Therefore, empowerment offers social work researchers the opportunity to be ethical according to current mainstream thinking in social work. The trend to emphasize empowerment in qualitative social work studies reveals merits and some limitations, as researchers often emphasize successful or resilient individuals within oppressed groups studied. The dual focus on resiliency and empowerment contributes to research participants as role models of successful coping within their communities. Simultaneously, it overshadows the stories of the multitudes of ordinary unfortunate members of these oppressed or disenfranchised populations. The target of most empowerment studies is to increase the social power of populations and not the research participants themselves, resilient or not (Peled & Leichtentritt, 2002).
A number of advantages have been documented about the use of qualitative methodologies for social work. For example, descriptive, inductive, and unobtrusive techniques for data collection are regarded as compatible with the knowledge and values of the social work profession. In circumstances where social workers are faced with issues and problems that are not amenable to quantitative examination, qualitative methods have been advocated. The social’psychological bases of qualitative research suggest that it is compatible with the person-in-environment paradigm of social work practice. Qualitative approaches are similar in method to clinical social work assessments, as clinicians rely on interviews to gather data on a client’s issues in the context of the environment. The clinician reviews a series of hunches and working hypotheses that are based on observations made through ongoing contact with the client. Qualitative researchers, like clinicians, are trained to investigate each case individually, without imposing preconceived notions or attempting to generalize to all clients having a particular problem. Qualitative researchers maintain field notes and documents on their research, just as clinicians maintain running accounts of contact with a client in the form of process recordings or case records. In studies of social processes of complex human systems such as families, organizations, and communities, qualitative methodology may be the most appropriate research strategy. Scholars of the family now extol the benefits of qualitative methodologies in gaining, or understanding, the dynamic processes, meanings, communication patterns, experiences, and individual and family constructions of reality. Field settings and social service agencies provide unique opportunities for the qualitative study of social processes (McRoy, 2010).
Qualitative approaches have the advantage of flexibility and, in-depth analysis, as well as the potential to observe a variety of features of a social situation. Qualitative researchers conducting face-to-face interviews can quickly adjust the interview schedule if the interviewee’s responses suggest the need for additional probes or lines of inquiry in future interviews. Moreover, qualitative researchers can develop and use questions on the spot which can aid in a more in-depth understanding of a respondent’s beliefs, attitudes, or situation. During the course of an interview or observation, a researcher is able to note changes in bodily expression, mood, voice intonation, and environmental factors that could influence the interviewee’s responses. This observational data can be especially valuable when a respondent’s body language runs counter to verbal responses given to interview questions. Nevertheless, qualitative methodology is not completely precise because human beings do not always act logically or predictably (McCoy, 2010).
Qualitative research is frequently based on the researcher’s interpretations or judgements. Interpretations are by nature very personal and influenced by the researcher’s own values and individual biases. These criticisms are considered subjectivity. Therefore, qualitative research findings cannot be replicated in the same way as quantitative results. For example, two qualitative researchers, one with a more pessimistic viewpoint and one with a more optimistic viewpoint, both studying the same phenomenon and interviewing the same individuals, may attain different conclusions because the interpretive process would be impacted by their dissimilar world views. However, it should be noted that a primary emphasis on designing rigorous qualitative studies helps to minimize researcher bias. Qualitative research findings do not generalize to populations beyond the sample. This is due to the subjectivity of the results and because they are so specific to the sample. Generalizability is not the aim of qualitative research because the goal of qualitative research is to develop a rich understanding of an aspect of human experience. As the aim of qualitative research is understanding rather than generalization, data collection continues as saturation occurs. Saturation occurs with relatively small sample sizes of 30, 20 or 10 participants (Krysik & Finn, 2013).
A risk of betrayal can result from the greater closeness, and consequent trust may develop between the researcher and participant in qualitative research. The risk of betrayal increases because of the characteristic use of smaller samples and the emphasis on the details of how people live their lives (Shaw, 2008). Qualitative research evokes consideration about confidentiality and the protection of participant identity. Ethical questions arise due to the special closeness that may develop between qualitative researchers and study participants. Since participant observation is a key methodology, the researcher must explain how he or she plans to address the issue of non-consenting members of the group. It is not unusual for qualitative researchers to investigate ‘hidden’ populations who engage in behaviour defined as deviant. Applicants studying individuals who may be subject to legal sanctions if their identities are revealed will need to specify procedures to ensure confidentiality (National Institute of Health, 2001).

Although time, budgetary, and other resource constraints may impact qualitative research, these constraints should not be allowed to undermine it. Other important considerations must be considered such as the data collection method, as well as, the human resources available to the project and their skills must be taken into account (Wilmot, 2005). Qualitative research can require an enormous amount of time and be extremely labour intensive. It can also produce results that may not be generalizable for policy-making or decision making, and many funding sources think it may be simply too expensive (Trochim, 2006). The democratization of social work research is one direction in which the politics of the research have moved centre-stage. The belated increase in the awareness of research funders that qualitative research makes an important and distinctive contribution to policy, practice, and strategic research poses new challenges to qualitative researchers to address ethical issues in a persuasive and original way when applying for funding (Shaw, 2008).

Qualitative methods are particularly suitable for use with people who are more comfortable responding in an interview format than to a standardized survey questionnaire. It has been suggested that the gender of respondents should be a consideration in selecting a research strategy because many women may prefer qualitative research techniques to quantitative approaches as they favour opportunities to discuss subjects in context. Additionally, some members of ethnic groups, low income populations, or people who are socially distant from the researcher are more likely to participate in the in-depth interviews characteristic of qualitative research than to complete a structured questionnaire or survey. To enhance the validity of results in research with diverse populations, research questions must be clearly constructed and must not be subject to different cultural interpretations. Moreover, due to the subjective nature of qualitative research, it is important for the researcher to continually engage in self-examination to be certain that his or her own biases and stereotypes are not influencing the interpretation of the findings. On the other hand, because qualitative analysis allows researchers to explore in depth all factors that might affect a particular issue, this strategy permits sensitive consideration of the complexities of human diversity (McCoy, 2010). Then again, when compared with surveys and experiments, qualitative research measurements normally provide more depth of meaning but have less reliability. Also, qualitative research results cannot be generalized as safely as those based on rigorous sampling and standardized questionnaires (Rubin & Babbin, 2009).
Prolonged engagement is used to reduce the impact of reactivity and respondent bias. It is assumed that a long and trusting relationship between a researcher and respondent gives the respondents less opportunity to deceive and is therefore less likely to withhold information and lie. Plus, lengthy interviews or follow-up interviews with the same respondent enables the researcher to detect distortion or the respondent to disclose socially undesirable truths. However, there are drawbacks to prolonged engagement as lengthy engagement can lead to bias if the researcher over-identifies with the respondent and lose his or her objective, analytic stance, or own sense of identity. The term for this narrative is going native. Notwithstanding, qualitative studies that lack prolonged engagement should be viewed with caution as some authors think that because qualitative inquiries emphasizes flexibility, the label ‘qualitative’ means ‘anything goes’. The most common example occurs when a researcher thinks that one brief open- ended interview with each respondent is satisfactory (Rubin & Babbie, 2009, p.233). Another decisive factor in whether the qualitative research report provides sufficient detail about the study’s contexts and participants is to enable readers in other situations to determine if the findings seem likely to apply to the contexts or populations with which they are concerned. Researchers using qualitative observation must fuse two paradoxical perspectives. The first is the emic perspective in which they attempt to adopt the beliefs, attitudes, and other points of view shared by the members of the culture being studied. The second is the etic perspective which means maintaining objectivity as an outsider and raising questions about the culture being observed that would not occur to members of that culture (Rubbin & Babbin, 2009).
In conclusion, it is true that many people dislike the thought of researching, yet it is also true that once research is initiated, it can be become addictive as the researchers thirst for knowledge is awakened. It is a positive attribute that quantitative research engages with hard-to-reach populations and offers insight in extremely complex and often hidden social problems. It gives oppressed populations a voice that can pave the way for social inclusion and social justice.types of subjective research are open, fulfilling, pertinent, and on occasion, illuminating. Close by close to home intrigue or interest, there might be times when an individual has minimal decision, as an exploration component stays a mandatory piece of a showed course (Carey, 2012). A considerable lot of the center aptitudes required for subjective research will have been created or aced by numerous understudies and professionals. For example, a paper will involve related assignments, for example, gathering, handling, and breaking down data. Besides, social work professionals lead meets in evaluations or compose reports for financing boards or reports for court procedures. Besides, subjective research is found out the same amount of through direct understanding as through investigation and can help advance our creative mind and feeling of innovativeness or interest and the desire to know more (Shaw, 2012).

As per the Social Work Policy Institute (2010), social work inquire about advises proficient practice. Social work explore enables the expert to survey the requirements and assets of individuals in their surroundings, assess the adequacy of social work benefits in addressing individuals’ needs, show relative expenses and advantages of social work administrations, advance proficient training considering changing settings for training, and comprehend the effect of enactment and social arrangement on the customers and networks served. In the field of social work, specialists must stay well-educated with respect to any exploration propels in their separate zones. Promoters of proof based practice anticipate that social specialists should take part by and by educated by the best accessible proof. Research thinks about led through the viewpoint of subjective investigations give significant commitments to the social work information base. Much of the time, these examinations can speak to the best accessible research in regards to rising issues or utilization of proof to different populaces (Lietz and Zayas, 2010). Subjective research keeps on being an important methodology in social work practice. In 1994, the Council on Social Work Education necessitated that subjective research strategies be instructed in all certify lone ranger’s and ace’s level social work programs, a prerequisite restored in the Education Policy and Accreditation Standards in 2002 and again in 2008 (Drisko, 2013).

A widespread meaning of doesn’t exist. The writing of sociology and applied proficient fields, for example, interpretive, naturalistic, constructivist, ethnographic, and hands on work are differently utilized to assign the wide assortment of approaches that are basically subjective research (Hunt, 2004). Subjective research approaches enable specialists to interface with individuals in profoundly close to home ways that empower the people being looked into to express the rich implications of their musings, activities, and occasions in their lives. The two fundamental kinds of subjective strategies, top to bottom meetings and perception, carries specialists into close contact with the lived encounters of the individuals being looked into. These cooperations every now and again include individual themes that can summon amazing feelings for both the specialist and sources. These reminiscent circumstances give scientists the chance to investigate the profound implications of the marvels just as grow new speculations and understandings that have rich and nuanced measurements. In this manner, the information picked up isn’t just data that goes through the focal processors of the mind, yet additionally emerges from our souls and profoundly held feelings. Subsequently, understandings picked up by means of the commitment of heart and brain have a prompt potential to associate with the hearts and psyches of crowds. This instantaneousness can be advantageous to people who are individuals from social work bodies electorate, for example, abused kids, destitute ethnic minorities, destitute families, individuals with psychological maladjustments and slight older who are disappointed from the political framework and whose voices are routinely stifled inside the fields where their destinies are discussed and molded: general supposition, councils, and social assistance offices (Gilgun and Abrams, 2002).

The responsibility of subjective social work practice to the strengthening of the disappointed populace is exemplary. Subjective social work scientists accentuate strengthening as their most predominant moral thought. However, strengthening is regularly a restrictive moral standard. The selectiveness of the enabling examination pattern can be comprehended from two contemporary points of view: the nature of social work and the absence of a particular code of morals and preparing in morals for subjective social work analysts. Most social work isn’t fundamental research. Rather, social work is a belief system submitted discipline in which professionals and specialists have an obligation to advance equity and improve welfare. The idea of strengthening permits social work scientists, especially subjective specialists, to move in the direction of these objectives by means of their exploration. Moreover, by enabling examination members and related populaces, social work specialists can connect a hole that may exist between their worth responsibilities as social laborers and an absence of preparing on investigate morals. In this way, strengthening offers social work scientists the chance to be moral as per current standard suspecting in social work. The pattern to underscore strengthening in subjective social work ponders uncovers benefits and a few constraints, as analysts regularly underline fruitful or strong people inside abused gatherings contemplated. The double spotlight on versatility and strengthening adds to explore members as good examples of effective adapting inside their networks. At the same time, it eclipses the narratives of the huge numbers of normal awful individuals from these abused or disappointed populaces. The objective of most strengthening examinations is to expand the social intensity of populaces and not simply the exploration members, flexible or not (Peled and Leichtentritt, 2002).

Various points of interest have been recorded about the utilization of subjective systems for social work. For instance, illustrative, inductive, and unpretentious systems for information assortment are viewed as good with the information and estimations of the social work calling. In conditions where social specialists are looked with issues and issues that are not amiable to quantitative assessment, subjective techniques have been upheld. The social’psychological bases of subjective research propose that it is perfect with the individual in-condition worldview of social work practice. Subjective methodologies are comparative in strategy to clinical social work evaluations, as clinicians depend on meetings to assemble information on a customer’s issues with regards to the earth. The clinician audits a progression of hunches and working speculations that depend on perceptions reached the customer. Subjective analysts, similar to clinicians, are prepared to examine each case separately, without forcing assumptions or endeavoring to sum up to all customers having a specific issue. Subjective analysts keep up field notes and reports on their exploration, similarly as clinicians keep in touch with a customer as procedure accounts or case records. In investigations of social procedures of complex human frameworks, for example, families, associations, and networks, subjective philosophy might be the most suitable research system. Researchers of the family presently laud the advantages of subjective procedures in picking up, or understanding, the dynamic procedures, implications, correspondence examples, encounters, and individual and family developments of the real world. Field settings and social assistance organizations give special chances to the subjective investigation of social procedures (McRoy, 2010).

Subjective methodologies have the upside of adaptability and, top to bottom examination, just as the possibility to watch an assortment of highlights of a social circumstance. Subjective analysts directing eye to eye meetings can rapidly change the meeting plan if the interviewee’s reactions recommend the requirement for extra tests or lines of request in future meetings. Also, subjective specialists can create and utilize inquiries on the spot which can help in a more top to bottom comprehension of a respondent’s convictions, dispositions, or circumstance. Over the span of a meeting or perception, a specialist can note changes in real articulation, mind-set, voice pitch, and ecological components that could impact the interviewee’s reactions. This observational information can be particularly important when a respondent’s non-verbal communication contradicts verbal reactions given to inquiries questions. By the by, subjective technique isn’t totally exact on the grounds that individuals don’t generally act consistently or typically (McCoy, 2010).

Subjective research is as often as possible dependent on the analyst’s translations or decisions. Understandings are essentially close to home and affected by the specialist’s very own qualities and individual inclinations. These reactions are viewed as subjectivity. Consequently, subjective research discoveries can’t be duplicated similarly as quantitative outcomes. For instance, two subjective specialists, one with an increasingly skeptical perspective and one with a progressively hopeful perspective, both contemplating a similar marvel and interviewin