Introduction to Research in Group Work: A Renewed Focus on Exemplary Methods, Part II

This issue is the second of a three-part special issue exploring exemplary methods in group work research. As noted in Part I (The Journal for Specialists in Group Work [JSGW], Volume 42, Number 1, March 2017), readers will be exposed to both quantitative and qualitative traditions for conducting group work as a means to challenge the artificial hierarchies and false dichotomies built around different methodological traditions, and to highlight the promises that each method brings to the research process in group work (Luke & Goodrich, 2017). Additionally, conceptual articles will address methodological issues pertinent to group work research in an attempt to critically examine the history, practice, and future of group work research.

For Part I of the special issue, we selected articles that broadly examined issues of research in group work. Articles in Part I addressed the current scope and depth of quantitative (McCarthy, Whittaker, Boyle, & Eyal, 2017) and qualitative research methods (Rubel & Okech, 2017), and introduced readers to the utility of mixed methods in research (Shannonhouse, Barden, & McDonald, 2017). In addition, articles explored how assessments have historically been constructed within the field of group work (Peterson, Gischlar, & Peterson, 2017), provided guidelines for conducting international group work research (Guth & Asner-Self, 2017), and discussed ethical issues facing group work in the research process (Goodrich & Luke, 2017).

For Parts II and III of this special issue, we have selected articles that are focused on specific research methodologies that group work scholars have successfully employed for exemplary work in group counseling research and have merit for further use. In this second part, authors demonstrate the utility of multilevel modeling, social network analysis, participatory action research, and content analysis. Unlike more typical group work research articles that merely report the study at hand, all four articles in Part II also address conceptual and methodological implications of future application of the specific research designs in the larger field of group work.

Part II begins with an article by Selig, Trott, and Lemberger that introduces researchers to multilevel modeling as an advanced quantitative method to account for the complexity of group counseling interactions and decreases the potential for violations of statistical assumptions, such as the independence of observations. The authors utilize a case from a published group counseling study to demonstrate how the complex structure of the group can be addressed using multilevel modeling to incorporate both individual and group-level variables.

In the second article, Lockhart introduces readers to social networking analysis as an effective means to explore social processes that might be central to group counseling. Although an underutilized methodological tool in group work, Lockhart uses a case example of an interdisciplinary scholarly team of 36 persons to demonstrate how social networking analysis can be employed in the research of task group dynamics. In doing so, she underscores the potential that social networking analysis has for group work research moving forward.

In the third article, Cook and Krueger-Henney examine how participatory action research (PAR) is both an effective research method and group intervention. Although the article reports use of PAR with youth to empower participants through co-constructed research agendas and processes, the authors also address the utility of PAR in group work more broadly. Accordingly, Cook and Krueger-Henney discuss how findings from PAR can produce data-driven action that might better address problematic aspects identified by participants through their lived experiences. The authors argue that PAR may be best used as a tool to better measure outcomes in youth empowerment groups.

In the last article of Part II of the special issue, Stroud, Pennington, Cleaver, Collins, and Terry present a content analysis of group work research articles published within JSGW between 1998 to 2015. In addition to describing the publication patterns across this period, authors discuss the trends of how published articles have changed over time, including the decreasing frequency of practitioner authorship and the use of different types of research methodologies within articles published in the journal. While some of the research trends identified seem consistent with patterns observed through content analyses in other journals across the counseling field—more qualitative research, for example (Bernard & Luke, 2015)—one noteworthy difference from this content analysis is that the research utilized more child/adolescent and adult participant samples, as compared to research in other counseling areas which has been described as heavily relying upon graduate student samples. Not only does this finding help us understand the more recently published research in JSGW, but it may also offer the field of group work a better understanding of our scholarly work, while also serving to differentiate specific knowledge claims that can be made about group work research in the future, especially with respect to client outcomes.

Taken collectively, the four articles in Part II of the three-part special issue on exemplary methods for group work research demonstrate how quantitative, qualitative, and more mixed method paradigms can each offer unique benefits to future research in group work. As many of the methodological and ethical challenges of group work research were explored in Part I (Goodrich & Luke, 2017; McCarthy et al. 2017), we have purposefully selected four articles for this special issue that productively address a number of the previously identified concerns. Therefore, not only are the articles in this issue examples of quality group work research in their own right, but together they also offer possibilities for the next generation of group work research. We look forward to building upon this in Part III of this special issue as well.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Luke

Melissa Luke, Ph.D., is a professor of Counseling and Human Services in the Department of Counseling and Human Services at Syracuse University.

Kristopher M. Goodrich

Kristopher M. Goodrich, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Counselor Education in the Department of Individual, Family, and Community Education at the University of New Mexico.