How do clinicians evaluate their practice effectiveness? A survey of clinical social workers

Abstract

There is wide variability in the amount and type of practice evaluation conducted by social work practitioners. This article reports the results of a survey on the attitudes towards and methods employed for evaluating practice effectiveness among 222 graduate‐level clinical social workers from New York State. Instruments consisted of two indexes: (a) an Empirical Evaluation Index (EEI) and (b) a Pragmatic Evaluation Index (PEI) following the work of Gerdes and colleagues. Findings suggest that clinical social workers are evaluating their practice and employ a variety of both empirical/quantitative and pragmatic methods. While respondents appeared more comfortable with pragmatic evaluation methods, a majority indicated that they were open to evaluating their practice using empirical/quantitative approaches. Graduate education had a positive impact on social workers’ utilization of empirical methods. Implications of findings for social work education and practice are described.