Researcher Development Initiative

RDI 2 2008-2010Increasing the Competence and Confidence of Social Work Researchers An Action-learning Programme to develop Research Capacity

Funded by ESRC and SCIEProfessor David Shemmings Chair of Social Work and Deputy Head (Medway campus) School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research University of Kent UKhttp://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/shemmings.html(then click on ‘RDI 2’)

Background

RDI 2 builds on the current Researcher Development Initiative

Made on behalf of the Joint University Council Social Work

Education Committee (JUC SWEC) Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social

Work Education (SIESWE) Social Work and Policy (SWAP) HEA subject

centre.

Background

The period between the first RDI and this one has seen the publication of A Social Work Research Strategy in Higher Education: 2006-2020 by the JUC SWEC see

www.swap.ac.uk/research/strategy.asp Key message

Major investment in social work and social care research in the UK is needed urgently to secure a radical change in capacity and capability

Background to the Strategy

Social work and social care services are a vital component of public services in the UK

Adult care services alone were in contact with over three million people in England in 2003/4

Well over 1.5 million people work in social work and social care services in the UK with more than £14 billion of public funds spent on social care services each year in England alone

Social care is a vital partner in health, education, child safeguarding and criminal justice agendas

But only 0.3% of the overall budget is spent on R&D, compared with 5.4% in health – i.e. 18 times less Another example: 20 times the amount of R&D monies is

spent on a GP than on a social worker.

Background to the Strategy

As the discipline underpinning social work and social care research, social work has an historically weak research base and academic infrastructure Lack of PG opportunities

• esp. PhD studentships and bursaries Journals, conferences and seminars

The reasons for the deficit are varied but have been well documented: Diverse locations of SWK in HEIs

• Lack of a secure base! Absence of SWK degrees/quals at Oxbridge Only recently has SWK had its own QAA benchmark

statement Joined with Social Policy and Administration in RAEs

Background to the Strategy

Only recently identified as a separate discipline in ESRC, hence: unrepresented on ESRC committees impossible to gauge number of applications and

awards The ESRC Demographic Review of the UK Social

Sciences (Mills et al, 2006) identifies social work as one of the smaller social sciences, with fewer than 600 permanent staff (out of a total of around 1050)

Only 44% of social work academics were research active in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (Fisher & Marsh, 2003)

Background to the Strategy

It is also a subject area with 47% of its staff aged 50 or over

The historical lack of attention to research methods in social work education and training also influences the research capacity of social work academics (Orme & Powell, 2005)

This all affects the capacity of social work to deliver doctoral programmes (Orme, 2003, Orme & Powell, 2005).

What’s distinctive about the SWK research strategy?

Uncommon for disciplines as a group have to an agreed position across HEIs nationallyIn the US there is the IASWR (but it is

not concerned primarily with HEIs) Our national strategic research plan

is, as far as we know, the first of its kind.

Aims and Outcomes of RDI 2

Assuming a moderately successful conversion rate from proposal to funding, an increase in the number of high-quality, social work-related research projects

A series of three ‘expert classes’, focusing on contemporary methods relevant to social work research, especially where there are known gaps in knowledge(s) and experience

An opportunity for 15 participants to spend a month on a ‘mini-placement’ with a network of registered providers of systematic reviews coordinated by SCIE to provide direct experience of undertaking scoping studies and systematic reviews

RDI 2 in practice

56 HEFCE-funded staff to join 7 topic-based Action Learning sets (LSets)

to develop promising lines of research enquiry through to a fully-costed completed design, ready for submission to a funding source

Links with mentors with track records of success in specific research topics

RDI 2 is aimed at achieving a ‘tipping-point’ in the development of academic social work research

RDI 2 in practice

Three 2-day (or 2x2 day) seminars for participants in:

Systematic Reviews and Scoping Studies (2 day) Experiments and Instrument design sympathetic to

social work values (2 day) Contemporary Qualitative and Quantitative

Methods (2x2 day)

Post-graduate researchers will be invited to attend sessions, if space is available

Action Learning Sets

LSets will each meet five times at a local collaborating university we will fix dates this afternoon

Participants are encouraged to identify mentors who have track records of success in specific research topics

Seminar 1 Systematic reviews and scoping studies

An intensive 2-day seminar for 25 participants on the processes involved in SR will be organised and run by Esther Coren

Protocols Question definition Specifying the field clearly Operationalising the question Inclusion and Exclusion criteria Search strategy

Using synonyms and Boolean logic Managing references Screening results Determining eligibility for inclusion Developing quality assessment criteria Using analytic and critical appraisal skills Data synthesis Drawing conclusions and making inferences

Systematic reviews and scoping studiesPlacements

Fifteen 1-month placements, offered by SCIE and a number of other organisations including SIESWE Eppi-Centre, Institute of Education Kings College Sussex Lancaster Central Lancashire

Participants will shadow experienced researchers working on systematic reviews

Universities cover for a member of staff at no cost, as part of its staff development commitment

Host organisations will receive a payment for the one-month placement; participants will receive a contribution towards expenses.

Seminar 2 Experiments and Instrumentation

Experimental designs are particularly difficult to apply in social work settings, partly because such interventions take place in complex social situations.

In particular 1. the processes of referral to services and decision about

intervention are complex 2. decisions about other challenges, such as the need for

protection of vulnerable individuals, may overlap with the particular intervention

Social work also favours complex psycho-social interventions, the relative contribution of which can be difficult to evaluate

Finally, social work sees the involvement of service users as central, but upon which traditionally the use of RCTs has placed a low premium.

Seminar 2Experiments and Instrumentation

A 2-day workshop for 25 participants will take place, designed to facilitate: The use of RCTs and quasi-experimental

studies designed specifically for social work applications

The use of scales and instruments in social work research (and practice)

Seminar 3 Contemporary qualitative and quantitative methods This phase will explore to ease the distinction between

qualitative and quantitative binary dichotomies. This seminar will offer two, linked 2-day workshops for 25

participants including: New(er) qualitative methods including:

• Actor-network analysis• Critical ethnography• Data support packages (CAQDAS, NVivo)• Biographic-Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) • Mixing epistemologies, including Q-Methodology (see

Shemmings, 2006) Unlocking the potential of contemporary advanced

statistical techniques to include:• Bayesian analysis, Path Analysis, Structural Equation

Modelling (SEM), Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM), logistic regression and dyadic data analysis (IPIM)

• Meta-analytic data techniques

References Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (2003) The Action Learning Handbook.

Abingdon, Routledge. Carpenter, J. (2005) Evaluating Outcomes in Social Work Education.

London, Scie/SIESWE. JUCSWEC (2006) A Social Work Research Strategy in Higher

Education: 2006-2020, Joint Universities Council for Social Work Education Committee’s Research Sub-Committee at http://www.swap.ac.uk/research/strategy.asp

Shaw, I., Arksey, H., & Mullender, A. (2004) ESRC Research, Social Work and Social Care, London: Social Care Institute for Excellence

Shaw, I., H. Arksey, et al. (2004) ESRC, Research, Social Work and Social Care London, Scie.

Shemmings, D. (2006) ‘“Quantifying” qualitative data: an illustrative example of the use of Q methodology in psychosocial research’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), April 2006, pp 147-165.

Walter, I., Nutley, S, Piercey-Smith, J., McNeish, D. & S. Frost (2004) Improving the use of research in social care practice London, Scie.