SS3290

Social Work Research

Topic 2:
Philosophy and processes in
social work research
❑ Philosophical perspectives in social
work research
❖A researcher’s way of thinking and motive
to conduct research is crucially influential
of their approaches in seeing what a social
reality is and choosing the research
methods in use for collecting data, all of
which are related to the philosophical
domain in research.
❑ Philosophical perspectives in social
work research (cont’d)
❖ There are generally Five philosophical perspectives
researchers may take when doing research. They are

✓ Positivism- The belief that there is a reality existing

quite apart from our own perception of it, which can be
understood through observation (investigation), and that
it follows general laws.
✓ Post-positivism- The belief that there is an empirical
reality, but that our understanding of it is limited by its
complexity and by the biases and other limitations of
researchers.
❑ Philosophical perspectives in social
work research (cont’d)
✓ Intersubjective perspective- An agreement by different
observers on what is happening in the natural or social
world; each party would hold their own subjective view/
angle in seeing things.
✓ Interpretivism- The belief that reality is socially
constructed and that the goal of social scientists is to
understand what meanings people give to that reality.
✓ Constructivist paradigm- A perspective that stresses
how different stakeholders in social settings construct
their own beliefs about what is real attributing to their
social positions and experiences.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions
❖ A social work research question is a question to
be answered through collection and analysis of
firsthand, verifiable, and empirical data.

❖ It is not a question about who did what to whom,

but a question about people interacting with
individuals, groups, or organizations; about
tendencies in community change; or about the
impact of different interventions.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
❖ Some research questions are:
➢ What are the causes of child abuse?
➢ Why do some elderly people participate in
comprehensive Social Security Assistance
Scheme (CSSA), whereas other eligible elderly
people do not?
➢ Does the use of an afterschool care program
reduce the parenting stress of parents and
promote better child development?
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
➢ Does cognitive behavioral therapy reduce
depressive symptoms of caregivers and, if so, by
what processes?
➢ What are the emotional consequences of
divorce on children’s long-term development?
➢ What are the differences of socio-demographic
and family relationship characteristics between
homeless and non-homeless middle-aged men
in Hong Kong and how these differences result
in their homeless status?
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
❖ Identifying and refining social work research
questions
➢ You might emerge your social work research
questions from your own experiences, knowledge,
and observation, or their combination.
➢ you need to refine your research questions to be
“researchable” by reviewing and consulting available
research literature as guidance and references to
construct your viable and valuable research
questions.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)

➢ To set up a good researchable research

question is a drilling process, in which you need
to do the feedback loop of reviewing your
experiences, knowledge, creativity, and
rationality in a reciprocal and integrative way.
➢ We are often enmeshed in thinking of “research
questions” that are too large, abstract,
impractical, unmanageable, and illogical.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
❖ Criteria in evaluating social work research questions

➢ Feasibility- we must consider our research study in

a feasible way in terms of time, resources and
efforts available. If time is short, a research question
involving long-term change may not be feasible. For
instance, it is difficult to study the impact of anti-drug
education program offered in middle schools on
subsequent drug use in adults. In sum, more large-
scale and ambitious a study is higher resources and
time is needed.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
❖ Social importance- social work research questions
should bear certain significant implications to have
direct benefits for a specific group, people,
community or the society as whole. Social work
research does not sheer emphasize on scholarly
important research questions, but those with societal
implications, e.g. the effects of a substance abuse
intervention program on abstinence and mental
health outcomes of the recovering addicts who took
part in the intervention and how the processes
happned.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
➢ Scientific relevance- it is necessary that every
research question should be grouped in both
social work and social science literature.
Whether we formulate a research question
because we have been stimulated by an
academic article or because we want to
investigate a current social problem, we must
turn to literature to find out what has already
been conducted and learned about this question
to support our theoretical and causal arguments.
❑ Setting Up Social Work Research
Questions (cont’d)
➢ Social diversity and cultural sensitivity- a
research question must be socially diverse and
culturally sensitive enough, which means a
research question should be inclusive
adequately in a clear term, e.g. when studying
family as a unit, the term of family should be only
included those intact families with two parents of
opposite sexes?
❑ Foundations of social work research
❖ Finding relevant information
➢ Conducting a thorough search of the research
literature and then critically reviewing what you
have found is an essential foundation for any
research.
➢ Most of the research information can be
identified online through academic research
engines or databases.
❑ Foundations of social work research
(cont’d)
➢ The main point of online research literature
search is that you should focus on those
scholarly publications, e.g. academic journals,
scholarly books, and official reports, rather than
newspapers, magazine and non-refereed
popular public research reports.
➢ Two main information searching approaches
that you can resort to find out the needed
literature for your research include academic
databases for research articles and the web for
governmental and policy reports.
❑ Foundations of social work research
(cont’d)
❖ Reviewing literature and research

➢ Effective review of prior research and academic

literature is an essential way and step in building
the foundation for a new research study.
➢ Thorough reviewing the literature and using it is
crucially important to extend and sharpen our own
research ideas, construction of theoretical
framework, hypotheses setting, and also
methodology.
❑ Foundations of social work research
(cont’d)
➢ Every research project is an integrated whole by
mingling past research findings, relevant
theories, research gaps, implications, and future
research directions together.
➢ Hence, you must put effort in constructing your
theoretical framework, citing relevant literature
as support, building research purpose, questions
and/ or hypotheses, as well as drawing findings
and making contributions based on the results
found.
❑ Foundations of social work research
(cont’d)
➢ Six Focuses of Constructing Theoretical
Framework/ Doing Literature Review

✓ Context review: Eastern or Western cultures?

Geographical issues. Natural setting or laboratory
setting?
✓ Historical (Sequential) review: Trace the
development of a topic
✓ Topical review: What do experts in the field say
about your topic? What are commonplace
opinions on it?
❑ Foundations of social work research
(cont’d)
✓ Methodological review: What methods were
used in previous studies?
✓ Theoretical review: What theories have been
used and/or built regarding the study topic?
✓ Integrative review: What ideas do you agree
with? Why or why not? What ideas do you
disagree with? Why or why not? What are both
sides of the argument? What do others imply or
assume? What hasn’t been said about your
topic?
❑ Social Work Research Strategies
❖ Deductive and inductive research perspective

➢ When conducting social work research,

researchers attempt to connect theory with
empirical data-- The evidence we obtain from
the social world.
➢ Researchers may make this connection by
starting with a social theory and then testing
some of its implications with data, which is called
the process of deductive research (an
approach most often used in quantitative
research).
❑ Social Work Research Strategies
(cont’d)
➢ Alternatively, researchers may develop a
connection between social theory and data by
collecting the data first and then developing a
theory to describe, explain and look into what
has happened underlying the data. This is called
the process of inductive research (most often
used in qualitative research).
❑ Social Work Research Strategies
(cont’d)
The links between theory and data
❑ Social Work Research Strategies
(cont’d)
❖ The role of social theory in social work research

➢ A good theory can provide us a coherent

explanation of many interrelated social
phenomena and predict behavior/ attitudes that
are likely to occur when certain conditions are
met.
➢ Theories as a whole can help us understand
how social problems/ issues emerge and guide
us how to design our interventions to help
individuals, families, groups, or communities.
❑ Social Work Research Strategies
(cont’d)
➢ Theories can be used to explain relationships
within many organizations as well as between
organizations; and they are often used to design
social policy.
➢ Building, evaluating, and testing a theory is
therefore one of the most important objectives of
social work research.
❑ The deductive and inductive cycle
(cont’d)
➢ As mentioned above, deductive research is
from theory to data and inductive research is
from data to theory, which is presented in the
following research cycle figure.
➢ In deductive research, a specific expectation is
needed to be deduced from a general
Theoretical Perspective to a predictable
Hypothesis. The specific expectation deduced
from a general theory is hence a hypothesis that
needs to be tested by empirical data.
❑ The Deductive and Inductive Cycle
❑ The deductive and inductive cycle
(cont’d)
➢ Hypothesis is a tentative statement about a
empirical reality implying a relationship between
two or more variables, in which a variable is a
characteristic of property that can vary, e.g. age,
gender, SES, depressive symptoms.
➢ In a hypothesis, variation in one variable
(Independent Variable) is supposed to influence
or cause (predict) variation in other variable
(Dependent Variable), e.g. Education  Income.
More hypothesis examples are in the follow
 ❑ The deductive and inductive cycle (cont’d)
Hypothesis Examples
Original Hypothesis Independent Dependent IF- THEN Hypothesis Direction of
Variable Variable Association
✓ As years of education Education level Income IF years of education Positive
increase, income increase, THEN income
increases increases
✓ As the no. of stressors stressors depressive IF the no. of stressors is Positive
increases, the no. of symptoms higher, THEN the no. of
depressive symptoms depressive symptoms is
increases Higher.

✓ As social support Social support Caregiver IF social support is higher, Negative

increases, caregiver level stress THEN caregiver stress is
stress decreases less.
✓ Crime rates are higher in Urbanization Crime rates IF areas are urban, THEN NA/
urban areas than in rural crime rates are higher Comparison
areas compared with crime rates
in rural areas
✓ Depressive symptoms Age of person depressive IF people are aged 11 to 29 Curvilinear
are higher for youths symptoms or 60 or older, THEN the
and older adults than no. of depressive
middle-aged people (30- symptoms is higher
59 years old) compared to people aged
25 to 59.
❑ The deductive and inductive cycle
(cont’d)
➢ The direction of the relationships within the
hypotheses can be observed.
➢ The direction of association is positive for
hypothesis 1 and 2; and negative for hypothesis 2.
➢ Hypothesis 4 is a special case as it does not tell a
positive or negative direction; this is due to the IV
(residence areas) is a categorical variable that
mentions one category (urban area) would have
higher crimes rates than the other areas (rural
area).
❑ Examples of Research Cycle of
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
➢ The research cycle of deductive and inductive
reasoning can be found in studies by Sheman
and colleagues (Sherman & Berk, 1984; Sherman
et al., 1992), in which they first went to test
whether the deterrence theory could reduce
recidivism among spouse batterers by use of
police arrest (Sherman & Berk, 1984). They
found that use of arrest did reduce recidivism
among the spouse batterers (deductive research).
❑ Examples of Research Cycle of Deductive
and Inductive Reasoning (cont’d)
➢ After support of their theory, they then went to test
their hypothesis in other cities and found that the
effect of deterrence theory in reducing recidivism
must be complemented by the control theory, in
which the arrested partners must have had a ‘stake
in conformity”, i.e. married and employed
(Sherman et al., 1992). Their results showed that
the individuals who were married and employed
were deterred from repeating the offenses by arrest;
but individuals who were unmarried and
unemployed were actually more likely to commit
the offences more often after arrest (inductive
research).
References
❖ Sherman, L. W., & Berk, R. A. (1984). The
specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic
assault. American Sociological Review, 49, 261-
72.
❖ Sherman, L. W., & Smith, D. A. (1992). Crime,
punishment, and stake in conformity. American
Sociological Review, 57, 680-90.
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research
❖ Ethical Considerations in Social Work Research

➢ Honesty and openness in the research process

➢ Don’t use science
➢ Voluntary participation
➢ Informed consent
➢ Do not harm the subjects/ participants
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research (cont’d)

➢ Confidential and/or anonymous (protection of

private information)
➢ Not deceiving subjects/ participants (usually,
exception in very special circumstances)
➢ Honest and open reporting of findings
➢ Conduct research with sensitivity to gender and
ethnicity (as well as other characteristics, e.g.,
disability, sexual orientation)
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research (cont’d)
❖ Research Ethics in Practice
➢ What is the level of risk of the study? (Are there risks for:
physical harm, pain, stress, fatigue, noxious stimulation,
emotional distress, invasion of privacy, deception,
criminal prosecution?)
➢ Is the study exempted from review (no risk to subjects),
of minimal risk, or more than minimal risk?
➢ Are subjects capable of giving voluntary, informed
consent? (Are they old enough? Can they understand
the study? Are they not mentally incapacitated by illness
or age or some other limitation?)
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research (cont’d)
➢ Did you describe the study (including the risks
and benefits) in a honest, balanced way? Do
not exaggerate benefits and minimize risks!
➢ Are you providing financial incentives to
participants? If so, are these incentives large
enough to become an “inducement?”
(inducement means the person has difficulty
saying no, because the reward is too great, thus
it reduces their ability to freely consent)
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research (cont’d)
➢ Will you ask about sensitive or illegal activity?
(e.g., drug or alcohol use, sexual activity, gang
membership, etc.)
➢ Will you collect information that could identify the
participants?
➢ Will you use anonymous or confidential data
collection procedures?
➢ How will you protect the research data?
❑ Ethical Issues in Social Work
Research (cont’d)
➢ What harm could occur if the data were lost?
(Criminal prosecution? Financial standing?
Reputation? Employability?)
➢ Will you induce excessive psychological stress?
Is this necessary? Is it warranted (does the
knowledge to be gained make it worthwhile)?
➢ Is pain or severe discomfort likely?
Key Terms
 Positivism
 Post-positivism
 Intersubjective perspective
 Interpretivism
 Constructivist paradigm
 Research questions
 Researchable questions
 Experience, knowledge, creativity, and rationality
 Feasibility
Key Terms
 Social importance
 Scientific relevance
 Social diversity
 Academic databases
 Literature review
✓ Academic journals
✓ Theoretical framework
✓ Research purpose
✓ Deductive research
✓ Inductive research
Key Terms
✓ A good theory
✓ Hypothesis
✓ Deterrence theory
✓ Ethical considerations
✓ Confidential and anonymous
✓ Honest and open