Designed to help students develop skills in evaluating research and conducting studies, this brief version of Rafael J. Engel and Russell K. Schutt’s popular, The Practice of Research in Social Work, makes principles of evidence-based practice come alive through illustrations of actual social work research. With integration of the CSWE Competencies, the text addresses issues and concerns common to the discipline and encourages students to address diversity and ethics when planning and evaluating research studies. The Second Edition includes a focus on qualitative research, a new chapter on research ethics, new sections on mixed methods research and community-based participatory research, and more.
Rafael J. Engel (PhD, University of Wisconsin; MSW, University of Michigan; BA, University of Pennsylvania) is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He coordinates the graduate certificate program in aging and is the principal investigator for the Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education. Dr. Engel has written Practice of Social Work Research (with Russell Schutt) and Measuring Race and Ethnicity (with Larry E. Davis). He is a member of the editorial board of Race and Social Problems. As an active member of the research community, he has authored journal articles on such topics as poverty in later life, welfare benefits, and depressive symptomatology, and has written a variety of monographs reporting agency-based evaluations. His funded research includes studies on gambling, faith-based organizations, and employment in later life as well as funded evaluation research studies on welfare-to-work programs and drug and alcohol prevention programs. His most recent research involves older adults and gambling prevention.
Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is professor and chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service. Since 1990, he has also been lecturer on sociology in the Department of Psychiatry (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) at the Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University. In addition to eight editions of the text on which this brief edition is based, Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, and four other coauthored versions—for the fields of social work, criminal justice, psychology, and education—his other books include Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (2011), Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited, 2015), and Organization in a Changing Environment (1986). He has authored and coauthored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and research reports on homelessness, mental health, organizations, law, and teaching research methods. His research has included a mixed-methods investigation of a public health coordinated care program, a study of community health workers and recruitment for cancer clinical trials, a mixed-methods study of a youth violence reduction program, a randomized trial of a peer support program for homeless dually diagnosed veterans, and a randomized evaluation of housing alternatives for homeless persons diagnosed with severe mental illness, with funding from the National Cancer Institute, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health, the John E. Fetzer Institute, and state agencies. His current scholarly foci are the impact of the social environment on cognitive and community functioning, the meaning of housing and service preferences, and the value of alternative organizational and occupational structures for service delivery. His prior research has also included investigation of social factors in legal decisions and admission practices and of influences on job and service satisfaction. Details are available at http://rschutt.wikispaces.umb.edu.
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关于数据分析的章节,设计得非常巧妙,它成功地搭建了社工专业知识与统计学之间的桥梁。对于我们这些可能在本科阶段数学基础就相对薄弱的读者来说,直接面对SPSS或R语言的命令是令人却步的。这本书采取了渐进式的策略。它首先从描述性统计入手,用社会工作中最常见的变量类型(如李克特量表、分类变量)来解释均值、中位数、标准差的实际意义——比如,一个服务满意度平均分是3.8,这在实践中意味着什么?随后,它很有条理地引入了推论统计,但重点始终放在对结果的解读上,而非复杂的公式推导。例如,在讲解t检验和方差分析时,作者反复强调的是P值背后的“统计显著性”与“实践显著性”之间的区别,这对于社工来说至关重要,因为一个统计上显著的微小差异,在资源有限的机构中可能毫无实践价值。这种将“数字”与“干预效果”紧密捆绑的叙事方式,让数据分析不再是目标,而成为了论证干预有效性的有力工具。
评分最后,本书在研究的最终环节——报告撰写和知识传播——的处理上,展现出高度的实践智慧。很多学术著作到最后就戛然而止,仿佛研究成果写完报告就完成了使命。但这本书却超越了传统的APA格式要求,深入探讨了如何“有效地”将研究发现转化为政策倡导或项目改进的行动方案。书中有一节专门讨论了如何为非专业受众(如社区决策者、拨款机构)制作简明扼要的摘要,以及如何利用视觉化工具(如信息图表)来增强影响力的技巧,这一点在当今社会工作领域至关重要。我尤其欣赏作者对“知识的循环”这一概念的强调:优秀的研究不应被锁在象牙塔里,它必须反馈到实践中去,指导下一轮的干预和再评估。整本书读下来,感觉像是获得了一份详尽的“从提出问题到推动变革”的操作手册,它不仅教我如何“做研究”,更重要的是教我如何“用研究”来更好地服务社会。它是一本真正的工具书,而不是一本理论说教的堆砌。
评分我不得不说,本书在方法论的讲解上,展现出一种近乎“外科手术般精确”的清晰度。特别是关于抽样技术的章节,我过去总是在教科书上看到“随机抽样”、“分层抽样”这些名词,但理解得非常模糊,总觉得它们是脱离实际的理想状态。直到我读到这本书对不同情境下抽样挑战的细致剖析,才豁然开朗。比如,书中详细分析了在追踪流浪人群或隐秘社群时,传统概率抽样面临的巨大障碍,并引出了滚雪球抽样(Snowball Sampling)和目的性抽样(Purposive Sampling)的实际操作细节和局限性。作者没有停留在理论层面,而是提供了一份详尽的步骤清单,手把手地教导读者如何在资源有限的情况下,设计出“最不坏”的研究方案。更让我印象深刻的是,关于信度和效度的讨论,不再是简单的定义堆砌,而是通过构建小型实验设计来解释,如何通过预测试、三角测量(Triangulation)等方法来提高研究结果的可信赖程度。这种实战导向的写作风格,极大地增强了我的操作信心,让我感觉研究不再是一门高悬的艺术,而是一门可以学习和掌握的严谨技艺。
评分阅读这本书的过程,就像是跟随一位经验丰富、语速适中的导师进行了一次漫长的田野考察。它最大的优点在于其对定性研究方法的深度挖掘和尊重。很多社工研究的入门书籍往往将定性研究简化为“访谈记录的整理”,但本书却花费了大量的篇幅来探讨深度访谈的艺术——如何建立信任、如何处理沉默、如何进行有效的提问以避免引导性回答。作者甚至专门开辟了一个章节来讨论“反思性实践”(Reflexivity)在定性分析中的核心地位,提醒研究者必须时刻审视自己的文化背景、偏见和权力关系如何渗透到数据解释的过程中。这对我这个倾向于使用量化工具的人来说,无疑是一次深刻的思想冲击。通过阅读书中对扎根理论(Grounded Theory)和现象学分析的对比介绍,我开始真正理解质性研究的价值:它不是为了得出普遍规律,而是为了深刻理解特定情境下的个体经验和意义建构。我甚至尝试着按照书中描述的编码步骤,对自己过去做过的几次非正式访谈进行了初步的分类和概念化尝试,那种从原始文本中提炼出深层主题的成就感,是纯粹的数字分析无法比拟的。
评分这本书的封面设计简洁而有力,那种深沉的蓝色调,配上银色的字体,立刻就给人一种专业、严谨的学术氛围。我最初翻开它时,是抱着一种既期待又有点忐忑的心情。作为一名刚踏入社工领域不久的新手,我对“研究”这个词总是感到有些敬畏,总觉得那是高深莫测的统计学和复杂的数据分析。然而,这本书的开篇部分,特别是关于社会工作伦理与价值在研究设计中扮演角色的讨论,立刻让我感到亲切。它没有直接抛出复杂的公式,而是用一系列生动的案例,阐述了保护弱势群体、确保知情同意这些看似理论的东西,如何在实际的数据收集过程中转化为必须遵守的铁律。例如,书中对“赋权式研究”(Empowerment Research)的探讨,让我第一次意识到,研究的目的不仅仅是得出结论,更是要让服务对象成为研究过程中的积极参与者,他们的声音比任何冰冷的数字都重要。这种人文关怀的渗透,使得原本枯燥的章节变得有血有肉,让我明白了社会工作研究的核心精神——永远以人为本。我特别欣赏作者在介绍不同研究范式时所采取的平衡态度,既不偏废定性方法的深度挖掘,也不轻视定量分析的广度覆盖,这为我后续的学习打下了非常坚实的基础。
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