Engage in Practice-Informed Research and Research-Informed Practice.
Social workers use ethical, culturally informed, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive approaches in conducting research and building knowledge. Social workers use research to inform their practice decision making and articulate how their practice experience informs research and evaluation decisions. Social workers critically evaluate and critique current, empirically sound research to inform decisions pertaining to practice, policy, and programs. Social workers understand the inherent bias
in research and evaluate design, analysis, and interpretation using an anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspective. Social workers know how to access, critique, and synthesize the current literature to develop appropriate research questions and hypotheses. Social workers demonstrate knowledge
and skills regarding qualitative and quantitative research methods and analysis, and they interpret data derived from these methods. Social workers demonstrate knowledge about methods to assess reliability and validity in social work research. Social workers can articulate and share research findings in ways that are usable to a variety of clients and constituencies. Social workers understand the value of evidence derived from inter-professional and diverse research methods, approaches, and sources.
Social workers:
a. apply research findings to inform and improve practice, policy, and programs; and
b. identify ethical, culturally informed, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive strategies that address inherent biases for use in quantitative and qualitative research methods to advance the purposes of social work.
This competency means that any practice that is intended is to be researched and the research is to be practiced-informed. Meaning that both research and experience in the field is being used to inform how social workers practice. Being that the field of social work is largely formed from research to dictate how we practice, this competency is an immense component to our field. It is important because we as social workers use the most current data and trends to inform us of how we should practice. This competency not only engages me to perform research in my practice on a very regular basis but to abide by the necessary ethical and inclusive measures that the field requires us to. I am challenged as a social worker in this competency to continue to perform research even after formal schooling is complete as it is necessary for the field to progress. Whether that is performing an actual research design or staying up to date on the latest research in our field.
Evidences
Coursework:
Research: What are the Motivators and Barriers to Volunteerism Among the Helping and Non-helping majors at a private Christian University?
This is my research group’s quantitative findings that we presented on Campus Research Day. The study was created by Geneva Ferro, Kyla Robbins, and myself for our Research Methods II. We are taking a deeper look at the connection of volunteering and what drives those in different professions to volunteer. The research design was done in Research I in the previous semester. The results were that there were no significant statistical differences among barriers to volunteering between helping and non-helping majors. There were significant statistical differences among motivators for helping majors and non-heping majors. Helping majors had more motivators for volunteering than non-helping majors.
This assignment helped me develop knowledge and skills of researching literature on the topic of volunteering for college students. However, the most important skill that I learned was how to perform a research design that collects data and will add to the literature of volunteering.
I chose this because it is a research project that is addressing a lack of literature about the topic and social workers are called to carry out research to enhance and progress the field of social work.
Field:
Belonging Focus Groups: Qualitative
This is research that the Office of Diversity and Strategic Planning is conducting and has been tasked to see. This is a survey that encompasses both students and faculty as to what makes someone feel like they belong in a classroom and/ or workplace as well as what Southern has to do to create environments that make space for others to belong. There are additionally, focus groups for the qualitative portion of this study. There are separate groups of the focus groups: Students being one and faculty being the other. The survey was developed for the majority of last semester but received approval from the IRB in early March and has collected responses. I am involved in facilitating a focus group of staff and faculty for qualitative analysis. This task group is currently happening and we are awaiting to interpret this data.
I have developed the skills that I recently learned in my research methods course to implement in field with this research. I used my knowledge of using SurveyMonkey to create our Belonging survey. Before this, I reviewed and assisted with adding more questions for the survey. I have also gained the knowledge of how to conduct research outside of the classroom which includes who to contact and how to use a team to accomplish this great feat of researching.
I chose this because it is active research that is being done on the campus of SAU for a topic that is heavily important to the vision of SAU, which is to create an environment of belonging and diversity. I hope research will greatly add to the literature and best practices of higher education.
Further Evidence:
This differs from the previous evidence in that this was a presentation that I gave at an event from the Office of Ministry and Mission (OMM) that we attended called Campus Ministries Convention. This was a convention where all campus ministries in the NAD were invited to Cohutta Springs Youth Camp, GA, to commune and learn what other campuses do at their respective campuses to engage students in their walks with God. Southern’s campus ministries (OMM) LifeGroup Directors were asked to give a presentation of how our system with Lifegroups works and what our statistics are in retaining individuals in Lifegroups. Being a LifeGroup Director, I attended this convention and was given a portion of this presentation to speak on what students have indicated to us about their spiritual growth when they attend and are a part of a Lifegroup. The sense of belonging they feel and how this has grown since COVID-19 slowed our office to a halt.
I chose this because the presentation used statistics from a student-wide survey of their experience when in a Lifegroup. I also see this demonstrating this competency because we used survey findings to create the presentation with the intention of demonstrating how Southern has grown and maintains such great attendance in Lifegroups.