SOWK 487 Week 16 - Group Work Research and Evaluation

GROUP WORK RESEARCH & EVALUATION Spring 2021 SOWK 487 Jacob Campbell, LICSW - Heritage University

Agenda

Evaluation designs for groups Difference between program evaluation and clinical evaluation What is a qualitative design methodology Intervention research

Readings for Week 16

Gant, L. M. (2017). Chapter 29 - Evaluation and research design. In C. D. Garvin, L. M. Gutierrez, & M. J. Galinsky Handbook of Social Work with Groups (pp. 527-534). The Guilford Press.

Macgowan, M. J. (2017). Chapter 32 - Intervention research in social work with groups. In C. D. Garvin, L. M. Gutierrez, & M. J. Galinsky Handbook of Social Work with Groups (pp. 565-585). The Guilford Press.

Preston, S., Hughes, J., & Woodford, M. R. (2017). Chapter 31 - Qualitative research. In C. D. Garvin, L. M. Gutierrez, & M. J. Galinsky Handbook of Social Work with Groups (pp. 549-564). The Guilford Press.

Evaluation and Research Design: Intervention of Tasks of Group Work

Grant (2017)

Groups are used to help people address a variety of intervention tasks (p. 528)

1. Identifying problem to be solved: Groups can increase personal awareness of problems or issues without personal accusation or prejudgment and with normalization and destigmatization of the issue.
2. Deciding to solve the problem: In groups, people with low motivation to resolve problem issues can find ways and support to increase motivational levels to address the problem or issue.
3. Planning for problem-solving: Persons learn in groups how to identify problems and employ problem-solving methods to generate, assess, and implement solutions.
4. Active problem-solving: groups can provide a wide variety of strategies for change, along with ways to implement and monitor the change efforts
5. Maintaining problem-solving strategies: Groups can be more effective than individuals in working to sustain and support personal change efforts. Groups can also provide support in the face of personal lapses or relapses.

Evaluation and Research Design: Program Evaluation verses Clinical Research

Grant (2017)

One aspect that we can think about when we are looking at research design is the difference between program evaluation and clinical research evaluation. The main way we distinguish between these two is by understanding what is the purpose of the research.

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Evaluation and Research Design: Program Evaluation verses Clinical Research

Grant (2017)

program evaluations differ from clinical research in two main ways

1. Purpose of data collection
2. Standards for judging the validity

Evaluation and Research Design: Program Evaluation verses Clinical Research

Grant (2017)

So, what is program evaluation. Some of the purposes of program evaluation include:

• Decide whether to accept a new program or service
• Decide whether to continue, change, or eliminate an existing program or service
• Examine the uniformity of program implementation with a program plan
• Assess the overall value of a program
• Help funders and stakeholders determine how issues are being solved or needs are met.

Evaluation and Research Design: Program Evaluation Definition

Grant (2017)

Program Evaluation: Inform decisions, clarify options, specify improvements, and provide information about programs and policies within the social and political context.

Evaluation and Research Design: Clinical Research Definition

Grant (2017)

Clinical Research: To seek out new knowledge, engage in theory testing, confirm or disconfirm hypotheses, and generalize findings

Research Methods: Study design

Preston et al. (2017)

The three types of study designs include:

• Qualitative: “Examine words or other media to understand their meaning” (DeCarlo, 2019)
• Quantitative: “Examine numerical data to precisely describe and predict elements of the social world” (DeCarlo, 2019)
• Mixed Methods: Combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies

Research Methods: Methodologies of Qualitative Research

Preston et al. (2017)

• Case Study: A case study is an examination of a particular case that is a bounded system (e.g. A particular group intervention or setting) in order to develop an in-depth understanding of the chosen case Method - researchers engage in a variety of forms of data collection, including interviews and documents.
• Ethnography: Ethnography involves spending time with a particular group in order to document shared patterns of beliefs, language, behaviors, and values Method- Researchers generally use interviews and observations
• Grounded Theory: Grounded theory is a process of inquiry seeking an explanation Method- Researchers often conduct interviews, but may also utilize other forms of data collection.
• Narrative inquiry: Narrative inquiries are used to study how individuals construct meaning about their identities, events, and/or experiences, such as participation in a group intervention. Method - Researchers usually collect stories through interviews
• Phenomenology: Phenomenology seeks the common meaning or essence of a lived experience for a group of individuals and is focused on a description of the phenomenon or experience, for example leading clinical groups with a particular population Method- researchers commonly employ a long interview method.

Qualitative Research: How Would You Evaluate

[Small Group Activity] Students will work in small groups to discuss how they would evaluate the following: “Professional Similarities for Social Work Students”

• What would you look for
• How would you look for it

Qualitative Research: Tactics to Foster Rigor

Preston et al. (2017)

Improve rigor makes our research more valid. There are a number of strategies that get used to improve rigor in qualitative research, these include:

Prolong engagement: The researcher’s past experiences in the field and relationships with stakeholders and pastor trusting relationships with participants, which is helpful in addressing reactivity and participant bias and can also foster the researchers increase sensitivity to emerging on steps

Triangulation: Having more than one researcher, collecting data from multiple sources representing various perspectives, combining different data collection tactics, and/or reduce each threat to rigor

Peer Debriefing: Consulting colleagues about emerging findings is useful in obtaining another perspective about one’s interpretations, while also getting other ideas both of which are useful and minimizing research bias

Member Checking: Themes and analysis are presented to participants and/or other stakeholders in order to verify one’s interpretation this strategy can occur within an interview or a bowling date analysis and interpretation

Negative case analysis: Inclusion of data that contradicts themes identified in the data helps to address researcher bias.

Audit trail: Documenting mythological and self-reflective memo can help reduce research bias

Thick description: Providing ridge details about how the study was conducted, the research contacts, and the data (through the provision of quotations) can reduce researcher bias and promote transferability

How would you evaluate groups for Parents?

[Small Group Activity] Students will work in small groups and consider how they would evaluate a group for parents. What are some of the tactics they could use to help enhance rigor for that research?

Intervention Research

Macgowan (2017)

Intervention research is “A purposeful change strategy for developing or fine-tuning interventions”

[Whole Class Activity] Talk about some of the application of what intervention research is. Consider the connection between participatory action research.

Steps in Conducting Intervention Research

Macgowan (2017)

The following are the steps within conducting intervention research:

Step 1: Specify the Problem and Develop a Program Theory

• Understanding what is the problem and the program being evaluated and the theoretical basis.
• Often fits within community-based participatory research
• Generally, there is a need to develop a logic model showing the risk and protective factors and linking them to the program’s components

Step 2: Create and Revise Program Materials

• There should be a manual for the program that explains all of the aspects of it

Step 3: Refine and Confirm Program Components in Tests

• Often times there is a pilot study that takes place, to help know if it will be useful
• After a pilot study, there is generally controlled study (experimental design)

Step 4: Test Effectiveness in a Variety of Practice Settings

• How effective is the intervention

Step 5: Disseminate Findings and Materials

• Sharing back to the greater social work community