Research Design for Social Work and the Human Services

by Jeane W. Anastas

Book Overview

Research Design for Social Work and the Human Services integrates a range of research techniques into a single epistemological framework and presents a balanced approach to the teaching of research methods in the "helping professions." Jeane W. Anastas begins with a discussion of the different philosophical perspectives within which social research occurs and continues with problem formulation, research design, and methodological issues...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231118902
• ISBN13: 9780231118903
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 2.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 7.3" x 10.3"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

how to design a valid experiment

Anastas offers a comprehensive look at how to set up your experiment; for the [grad student?] researcher in social work, or more broadly, in the social sciences. The hardest sections may be where you have to tease out the independent variables in an experiment you are designing. Ideally, there should only be one. Certainly, you need to try to minimise however many there might be. Causality is the key concept. One that you often strive to prove for your independent variable. For by being able to vary this at your volition, and seeing different results, in other variables, which are then presumably dependent variables, then you have a valid design. Actually, as described by the author, it really covers any experiment in any branch of science. One section talks about the ethics of dealing with human subjects. Something that is quite different from experiments in physics and chemistry. When you work at the level of atoms and molecules, ethics is moot. In those fields, ethics usually refers to the dealings of the experimenters with themselves and their data analysis. There are sections of the book dealing with the maths of analysing results. A fairly light treatment. But hopefully adequate for your needs.