Social Work 298 Dr. Hardina
Project/Thesis Chapters:
I Problem Statement
a) Introductory paragraph with a general description of problem to be addressed. Authors often present some broader context in which to place the study, i.e., what is the big problem/concern/issue that underlies your research.
b) Identification of the problem. This section identifies the specific problem or question that you will focus on and your research approach. It narrows the scope of the proposed research. These areas are covered briefly; often specifics are developed in the literature review. Give the reader some context, e.g. scope, prevalence, and impact of the problem.
c) How do social workers or service consumers encounter/experience this problem?
d) In what context, does this problem occur? (agency settings, in the community, private practice, etc)?
e) Who is typically affected by the problem (social workers, clients, community residents,
administrators, the general public, etc.)?
f) What is the scope (i.e. size or impact) of the problem? Provide the reader with percentages or other statistical information about the size of the problem or the size of the population affected (this can include Census data, information from agency records, or reports distributed by advocacy organizations).
g) What do social workers typically do about it?
h) What additional information would assist social workers in combating/addressing this problem? What is the justification for conducting this study?
i) What is the theoretical conceptualization of the problem/questions that you will use in the study? That is, what is your conceptual framework? This may also refer to the framework you are using to conduct qualitative research (e.g., phenomenological, feminist)
j) What is your primary research question or hypothesis? What do you want to find out about this? (You will restate the question in Chapter 3 and include additional questions in that chapter)
k) For quantitative studies, give brief definitions of your independent and dependent variables and describe the relationship expected between the two variables.
l) Include a brief statement of about how you collected data to answer you research questions or test your hypothesis. E.g., Identify your unit of analysis. Who or what did you study? (Include a description of the population group and the number of people or cases studied). How did you go about studying the problem?
m) Optional: Briefly provide information about the agency or program in which the research has been conducted.
n) Include a paragraph that summarizes the content of this chapter and tells the reader what to expect in chapter 2.
a) Introductory paragraph that describes the content of the Chapter.
b) Optional: Historical overview of the problem or issue or detailed overview about the scope of the
problem and how it affects specific population groups. (Consult with your chair about whether he or she would like this section included in your project or thesis. If a historical overview is required it should contain a minimum of 10 references, which can be subtracted from the requirements for theoretical and empirical review.)
c) Theoretical/Conceptual Literature:
Quantitative Studies
In quantitative studies, this section of the project should describe the intended outcome of the intervention. In other words, what is the assumed linkage between the independent variables and the dependent variable that you propose to examine? For example, if you intend to examine the effect of parental education classes in increasing participant scores on the Hudson's self-esteem scale, you should offer an explanation as to why such an effect is expected. What you are doing is identifying a “cause and effect relationship.” Literature on practice models that helps you define the variables or lists the activities necessary to implement the intervention is appropriate here – see the specific parts of empirical articles that specify the author’s theoretical assumptions. Why should the intervention produce results?
Qualitative studies
The development of a theoretical framework may is not always possible in qualitative studies. You may write a critical review of the previous literature (for example, in what ways do previous theories “fit or fail to fit the experience" of the group (e.g., women, persons of color, persons with disabilities, or gay men and lesbians) you wish to study. How does this call for your proposed qualitative study?
An alternative (or in addition) to a critical review of previous theories is a discussion of the literature pertaining to a type of qualitative research methodology. Write a description of your approach to qualitative data collection and analysis (feminist, participatory action research, ethnographic studies, grounded research, needs assessments) based on the "how to" literature found in social work or psychology/sociology journals and research textbooks. For instance, if you were to conduct a qualitative research study using a feminist approach you must identify the basic research assumptions that differentiate feminist research from traditional quantitative approaches. Address how this approach with its assumptions is appropriate to your research question/goals.
A minimum of ten reference sources must be used. You may use journal articles, books, or social work textbooks as references. Note: Not all of these sources need to be directly from the social work literature. You may find appropriate articles in books or journals that are interdisciplinary in scope, sociology or psychology , or specific fields of practice (i.e. education, substance abuse, mental health, etc.).
c) Overview of Trends in the Theoretical/Empirical Literature (you may want to include a transition paragraph that describes the specific topics contained within the review and try to develop some narrative that links the different type of literature).
A minimum of 20 reference sources must be used. You may use journal articles, books, or social work textbooks as references, however, avoid excessive use of "as cited in" and order and read the original article or text.
Make sure that you organize your articles into specific categories. For example, studies conducted on specific populations, different types of studies, different aspects of the independent or dependent variables. Make sure that this section can be read as a story or narrative. You are trying to provide the reader with a justification for your choice of methodological approaches in Chapter 3.
It’s also o.k. to integrate the theoretical and empirical lit into one longer narrative – however, you must make explicit the gaps in the literature and the methods commonly used by previous researchers to address the problem. What I’m after is a rationale for the research approach that you’ve chosen).
Points to be addressed in this section include:
How has the problem been viewed in the past?
What theoretical approaches have been used to examine the problem? How have these approaches changed over time?
What types of studies have been conducted in the past? How was this research conducted and what
were the major findings?
What is the current thinking in the field about this problem?
What types of research has been conducted in the last several years (if any)?
1. Is the research primarily qualitative, quantitative or descriptive?
2. Describe characteristics of subjects who were typically included in the study?
3. What were the primary research questions or hypotheses?
4. What types of research designs were used?
5. What types of sampling methods were used? How big were the samples?
6 What types of instruments were used to collect data? How was reliability assessed?(For standardized scales include measures of reliability such as Cronbach’s alpa)
7. What were the primary findings?
Note: Most of your literature should be relatively recent (written in the last 10 years).
d) Gaps in the Literature
In this section, give your opinion about the quality (or lack of quality) in the previous literature you described in the literature review.
1. What were the strengths of previous studies?
2. What were the weaknesses?
3. Are there any apparent gaps in this literature (types of studies not conducted, population groups not included, issues not addressed)?
4. How does your study improve on previous research? How does it fill in any apparent gaps in
the theoretical or empirical literature.
e) Include a summary paragraph that describes the main points in this chapter.
a) An introductory paragraph that includes a brief description of the problem addressed by the study and the types of research questions
b) Identify your variables. (If you have constructed a research hypothesis you will need to identify your dependent and independent variables.)
c) List operational definitions for at least 2 or 3 of your primary variables.
An operation definition includes both the dictionary (nominal) definition of the concept
and a statement about how you will measure the concept.
d) Restate your primary research question and any secondary questions.
Hypotheses or research questions should be generated from your theoretical literature review. For example,
Hypothesis 1: Intervention X will decrease hospitalizations among children with diabetes.
Hypothesis 2: There is an association between gender of the child and the number of post-intervention hospitalizations.
Hypothesis 3: There is an association between ethnicity of the child and the number of post-intervention hospitalizations
e) Describe your research design and describe how you implemented this design (see Rubin & Babbie for a list of designs).
f) Describe your target population and sampling plan. How many people were included and how were they selected?
g) Describe your data collection method and instruments (refer the reader to a copy of the instrument in Appendix A).
h) Describe any permissions you obtained in order to use a standardized instrument.
i) Describe how you ensured reliability and validity. If you use a standardized
instrument, include information about the reliability and validity of the instrument.
i) Describe how you controlled for confounding or extraneous variables.
k) Describe your human subjects procedures including:
- Protection of confidentiality
- Informed consent (including potential harm to participants and the right to
withdraw from the study at any time).
- Prevention of reactivity of subjects to exposure to data collection instruments
- Measures taken to make responses anonymous i.e. the assignment of code numbers to questionnaires.
- Measures taken to ensure that only the researchers will have access to information about respondents. (For example, only researchers will have access to names of respondents surveys and tape recordings will be secured in locked file drawers). Refer the reader to consent forms or letters in Appendix B.
l) Describe your Data Analysis Plan including: the type of data to be analyzed,
the type of computer program used for statistical analysis, statistical methods to be used to examine the data and level of measurement for the variables analyzed (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio). HINT: level of measurement determines what statistical tests are appropriate.
m) Include a paragraph that summarizes the content of this chapter and tells the reader what to expect in Chapter 4.
a) Introductory paragraph that describes the content of the Chapter.
b) A paragraph that gives a brief demographic description of study participants.
Also refer reader to relevant tables. However, if you can adequately summarize table contents in the text, don’t include the table.
For example,
Respondents were slightly more likely to be male (55.2%) than female (44.8%). Nearly all of the respondents were Caucasian (91.2%). Only 7% were African American. Just 1.8% were Latino. Less than a third of the respondents were employed in schools with both graduate and undergraduate programs (see Table 2). Respondents reported that the number of faculty in the programs ranged from two to sixty. The average number of faculty teaching community organization was three (SD = .5).
c) Provide your answer to Hypothesis or Research Question 1. Include tables.
d) Provide your answer to Hypothesis or Research Question 2. Include tables.
e) Provide your answer to Hypothesis or Research Question 2. Include tables.
f) Include any answers to additional research questions.
g) You may include text and tables with additional analysis. For example, you may not have had a question about how depression varies by age. Perhaps your data analysis indicates this and you wish to include it in your results.
h) Include a paragraph that summarizes the content of this chapter and tells the reader what to expect in Chapter 5.
a) Introductory paragraph that describes the content of the Chapter.
b) Brief description of results that highlights your major findings. What data was consistent with your theoretical assumptions (i.e., your hypotheses)? What was different? You should be able to provide specific answers to those research questions listed in Chapter 3.
c) Describe how your findings were consistent with previous studies. Include citations to earlier research here. for example, if you studied client satisfaction surveys, were your results the same as those found by previous studies. Why or why not?
d) What were the micro and macro implications of your research for social work practice?
What can social workers learn from this?
e) How did the study and your findings address issues related to empowerment, social justice,
and cultural diversity.
r) Are there any obvious policy changes (agency or government) that should occur as a result of your study? Should agency policies be changed?
g) What were the limitations of your research?) Description of the limitations of your study: design, internal/external validity, reliability/validity of instruments, generalizability, etc.
h) Does your study suggest any directions for future research? What other aspects of this study should be examined. Given the limitations of your own study, what else should be examined?
i) Brief summary of the results of this chapter.
Appendices (including a copy of the research instrument, cover letters, permissions, etc).
TABLE STRUCTURE (SUGGESTIONS ONLY – ALSO SEE Rubin & Babbie)
Note: All info in an SPSS table is not relevant – table should be easy to read. Tables present a concise overview of the data. For example, descriptive statistics for all demographic variables would be presented on a single table as opposed to individual tables for e.g., gender, ethnicity. See your empirical articles for formatting tips. Pie or bar charts may be substituted for tables. Use APA format for tables and figures.
Refer to the text for SWRK 272T/292, for help with writing your report, Pyrczak & Bruce, Writing empirical research reports.
If you obtain tutorial help with writing your project or conducting data analysis, consult with your project/thesis chair on a regular basis to make sure that you are on the right track.
Keep a copy of the assessment tool used by your SWRK 272T/292 instructor to assess your project. Make sure that your project/thesis chair “signs off” or agrees that you are on the right track prior to completing your first three chapters in 272T/292. You can ask your chair and the class instructor to consult in the event there are disagreements about expectations.
Also keep in mind, that the chapters completed in 272T/292 are not a completed document. You may need to add to the literature review to meet expectations for SWRK 298. This can be completed while you are collecting your data. With approval from your chair, you can begin data collection in January/February, complete data entry and analysis by April 1, and have about 6 weeks left to write the last two chapters. Chairs and readers may ask for corrections until the last draft is completed (typically you may go through 3-4 drafts of your project).