| For decades social work educators have sought better ways to promote practice/research integration. This dissertation describes an empirical evaluation of an effort to promote practice/research integration in a Foundations of Social Work Practice course through the use of practice analogs of research concepts.Three hundred twenty-seven masters social work students participated in this study. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons were made of students who took the course and of those who did not on such dimensions as: research anxiety, confidence, clinical mind-set, general and quantitative evaluation skills, frequency of use of general and quantitative evaluation skills and student perception of research analogs in practice. Qualitative measures asked students to provide examples of practice analogs of research concepts.Analysis of variance revealed no significant differences between the two student groups with respect to research confidence, research anxiety, clinical mind-set and self-reported use of quantitative skills. Second year students scored significantly higher on self-reported research skills, general evaluative skills, frequency of use of research skills, frequency of use of general evaluative skills, and frequency of use of quantitative skills. As predicted, students in the Foundations Course scored significantly higher on perception of practice/research analogs. The group that had no exposure to the practice/research analog content, had no research course, but had completed a full year of graduate social work education scored significantly higher on general evaluative skills self-assessment, frequency of use of general evaluative skills and the frequency of use of quantitative skills.Correlational analysis indicated that perception of practice/research analogs had significant associations for first year students with respect to research confidence, research anxiety, self-assessed quantitative skills as well as for clinical mind-set.For second year students, statistically significant correlations were found between the analog index and self-assessment of research skills, evaluative skills, quantitative skills, and frequency of use of research skills self-assessment, and frequency of use of evaluative skills.Qualitative analysis suggested values and beliefs that interfere with the perception of research analogs in social work practice. Implications for social work educators are discussed. |
