From the Editor—Scholarship for the 21st Century

Over the past several months, I have given much thought to the issue of scholarship for social work education and practice. More specifically, I have been pondering the types of scholarship that will advance our profession in light of some of the significant changes that have occurred in practice and academia over the last few decades. In preparing this editorial, I invited the editors of some of our leading journals to join me in addressing the issue of scholarship for the 21st century. I am pleased that this resulted in a collaborative effort that includes the editors of Social Work: The Journal of the National Association of Social Workers, Research on Social Work Practice, Families in Society, and Social Work Education: The International Journal. I hope that the diverse perspectives presented here will provide vision and guidance for both the current and future generations of social work researchers and scholars.

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Elizabeth C. Pomeroy, PhD, LCSW

Editor-in-Chief, Social Work: The Journal of the National Association of Social Workers

The early 21st century has been a challenging period socially, politically, and economically for the United States and around the world. Beginning with the tragedy of 9/11, we have been embroiled in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, high unemployment, and a serious housing crisis. With the economy in recession and a federal deficit in the trillions of dollars, massive cuts to social services and higher education have ensued. Social workers have had to find creative avenues to deliver services with less money to more clients. In this atmosphere, there is growing pressure for social work researchers to develop evidence-based interventions and examine the efficacy of these interventions in practice settings. Agencies also are under pressure to implement evidence-based practices with clients to get funded.

Translational research, or scientific research that can be implemented by practitioners in agency settings, is an important priority not only of federal funding agencies but also increasingly of private foundations. Consequently, there is a great need for social work researchers to be trained as translational scientists and to conduct studies that can be used by social work professionals in the field (Fong & Pomeroy, 2011) A primary component to achieving the goal of delivering evidence-based practices in agencies is to develop collaborative partnerships with community practitioners and provide training to enhance their skills in the effective delivery of interventions. There are several challenges, however, involved in this process.

As noted in his keynote address at the Bridging the Gap Conference in Houston, TX, Allen Rubin (2013) posed the problem of the discrepancy between research findings of evidence-based interventions and the outcomes of these practices in real-world settings. Are we developing interventions under ideal circumstances that cannot be implemented with similar outcomes due to a host of practical and ethical considerations that were not factored into the original study? For example, an agency decides to adopt a specific evidence-based practice as the primary modality for working with clients. However, due to agency limitations and client needs, the intervention has to be modified to take into account the practical considerations of the community, agency, and client population. The agency trains its practitioners in the evidence-based practice method; however, when outcomes are measured, the method is not found to be effective or is less effective than in the original study. Perhaps the lack of effectiveness occurred due to a lack of fidelity to treatment, lack of time or funding, an inability to retain clients in treatment, large caseloads, practitioner turnover, or other unintended consequences of treatment modification.

Social work scholars are well-positioned to examine this gap in the flow from social science to actual practice. Whether quantitative or qualitative, these studies should critically examine the flaws in translating experimental research findings into community organizations, which by definition are imperfect settings when compared to the conditions established for controlled experimental research. By discovering the factors that could compromise the ultimate outcomes of implementing evidence-based practices in agency settings, social work researchers could develop methods for translating research to practice that would meet agency–client needs without compromising the integrity of the research. Social work professionals and scholars possess the theoretical orientation and expertise to examine these person-in-environment factors that may be affecting the efficacy of evidence-based interventions.

To maintain our standing and credibility as social scientists in the coming decades, the social work profession needs to publish widely in the area of translational research. This includes disseminating manuals of evidence-based practices that are easily accessible to practitioners who, in turn, can implement these interventions within agency settings. We must continue to develop research–practitioner collaborations in the community with the shared goal of improving the outcomes of services we provide to clients. Additionally, we need to broaden our scope and engage in interdisciplinary research efforts by engaging experts in an array of professions from medicine, law, anthropology, psychology, nursing, education, and other disciplines with whom we can partner. Although the 21st century has awakened many challenges, it also provides us with an abundance of opportunities to enhance our growth as a profession.

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Bruce A. Thyer, PhD, LCSW

Editor, Research on Social Work Practice

It is an honor to be asked to share some brief thoughts on social work scholarship for the 21st century to appear in the distinguished Journal of Social Work Education, and I am grateful to the editor for her invitation. I will begin by contending, as have many others, that the most valuable form of scholarship a social worker can undertake is primary studies on the outcomes of everyday social work services, as provided by real agencies under realistic conditions. Evaluation studies meld the twin goals of scholarly inquiry and the service-mission of the profession, and we have a wide array of research methods now available for this purpose. Simple research designs are sufficient to answer simple questions, such as “Did our agency's clients improve following social work services?,” “Do our initially positive outcomes persist over time?,” or “Do improvements in presenting problems also occur along with enhanced quality of life, family functioning, or life satisfaction?” Nomothetic designs at the low end of the internal validity spectrum, such as the pretest–posttest single group design or the interrupted time series design, can answer such simple questions adequately and are very feasibly undertaken by agency practitioners, perhaps in collaboration with social work academic researchers. Simple single-system designs such as the “B” and “A-B” approaches can answer the questions nicely at the level of the individual clients. In these sequestered times, it is crucial that our profession find out whether the services we provide are followed by improvements in clients’ lives. Lacking such evidence, we can anticipate continuing erosion in public trust in the efficacy of what we do.

More complex questions require more complex research designs. If we wish to determine whether observed client improvements were caused by social work intervention—and this too is an exceedingly important issue—then stronger designs such as quasi-experiments and randomized controlled trials are needed to rule out various threats to internal validity and help control for various sources of bias. At the level of the individual client, the stronger forms of single system designs such as the A-B-A-B and multiple-baseline designs may also permit such causal inferences. Many hundreds of examples of such complex studies have been published by social workers, all attesting to the feasibility of applying these designs in agency settings (see, for example, LeCroy & Williams, in press; Thyer, 2012). Are these difficult undertakings? Yes. Impossible? By no means. Completing a doctoral dissertation that involves an empirical evaluation of social work intervention is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be seriously considered by our PhD and DSW students. Faculty members should encourage them to move in this direction (Harrison & Thyer, 1988).

In terms of scholarly standards, I encourage my fellow academics and journal editors to become familiar with the relatively new Journal Article Reporting Standards in the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association [APA], 2010, pp. 247–253). These form a comprehensive set of guidelines that the authors of empirical research studies can follow to assure consistency in reporting essential features of such studies. Supplemental guidelines are also provided for intervention studies, quasi-experiments, randomized controlled trials, and meta-analyses. Individual academics, faculty members supervising student research, and dissertation chairs should consider adopting these as a new, common, and elevated set of standards for research reportage. Editors could adopt them as official journal policy and instruct potential authors to adhere to them when preparing their submissions.

The APA publication guidelines indicate that every report of a statistically significant difference should be accompanied by an appropriate measure of effect size and a discussion of the implications this effect size has on the importance of the observed difference (not merely its nonrandom nature). The widespread adoption of such a standard within social work research would help reduce the publication of articles reporting statistically significant results that are actually of trivial magnitude or clinically unimportant (Hudson, Thyer, & Stocks, 1985; Thyer, 2008).

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Susan E. Mason, PhD, LCSW

Editor, Families in Society

In 1995 Margaret Gibelman published a unique book titled What Social Workers Do. In this volume she listed the many practice areas in which social workers provide vital services and contribute to the well-being of society. Since then updated editions have been published, all extolling the work of the profession. Although these volumes focusing on practice refer to research and scholarship, their emphasis is on current practices and practice sites. It is now time to adjust the vision, to reframe the concept from what we do to what we can do, and scholarship is the perfect medium to guide and showcase our work.

In terms of the current influence of scholarship on our work, there has been much written on the virtues and downside of evidence-based and evidence-informed practice. The pro-evidence proponents claim that all practice should have an evidence base, whereas those in the best practices group cite the importance of experience and the relationship. This is obviously a simplification of a complex discussion that includes the issues of what constitutes evidence, sufficient data on diverse client groups, access to research, the value of intervention theories, and a host of other matters too numerous for this brief essay. The overriding advantage of the evidence controversy is that the associated scholarship has influenced practitioners and educators to sharpen their views on practice interventions and further appreciate the complexity of our work with our clients.

Our next challenge is to employ empirical scholarship to promote social work practice in areas where traditionally it has not been present. To put it differently, where should we be, and how can we get there? Most of us know that we can do a great deal more than our current opportunities afford. A multitude of practice areas have sparse social work presence and even fewer research studies showing the value of social work interventions. These include certain medical fields, such as children's hearing and vision loss, for which families require a great deal of guidance and support. The same is true in clinical trials work, in which patients’ successes are often determined by family and peer supports. In these fields and in emergency room work, there are few empirical studies that show our economic value as well as our social supportive roles. Recently, my colleagues and I published a series of articles on the economic value of social workers in medical and psychiatric emergency rooms and found only a small number of databased studies, many done by researchers outside our profession. These are but a few of the potential practice areas in which we need demonstrate our value. Empirical scholarship demonstrating the importance of the work we do is the key to opening a wide array of opportunities to contribute to the well-being of families, groups, individuals, and communities.

Although I have primarily focused on social work in health care in this brief essay, this is by no means the only place where scholarship is poised to promote practice. Nor do I think we should give up on our traditional concerns of advocating for social justice and the alleviation of abuse, discrimination, and suffering among vulnerable populations. This is what we do, and we do it well. Yet we can do a great deal more, and scholarship is the means of positioning us more solidly in practice areas in which until now we have functioned somewhat marginally. In support of this stance, social work journals can help by encouraging manuscripts from authors engaged in researching heretofore neglected practice areas and asking that they clearly show how their research demonstrates the value of social work interventions.

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Imogen Taylor, MSW, PhD

Editor, Social Work Education: The International Journal

My comments build on a recent editorial by Marion Bogo in her capacity as Associate Editor of the North America Advisory Board of Social Work Education: The International Journal. In her editorial, “Cultivating Scholarship and Research in Social Work Pedagogy,” Bogo (2012)argued that to develop a robust body of pedagogic knowledge for the profession, we need social work academics whose specialism is pedagogic research and data about who is undertaking such research, the attitudes toward educational scholarship in social work, and whether such research is seen to count in the same way as research programs in more traditional substantive areas. As a U.K.-based pedagogic researcher, my view is that there are some grounds for optimism on the progress of pedagogic research as a subdiscipline in social work. I would identify the following three 21st century developments in particular:

1.	The establishment of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a national and independent organization whose mission is to enhance the quality and impact of learning and teaching. Significantly, with the launch of subject centers, knowledge and skills for teaching were differentiated across disciplines. Most recent HEA initiatives have included teaching development grants, funded doctoral research, and international study scholarships (http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/about).
2.	Excellence in teaching has come to the foreground. A key development is the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme for teachers in higher education, a controversial development that led me to explore the performance culture (Taylor, 2007). More recently, the controversial National Student Survey of the views of all final year undergraduates about their experience of their university programs has resulted in a published league table. In most U.K. higher education institutions, new teachers are now required to undertake a Certificate in Higher Education. Such developments can act as levers to development of the scholarship of learning.
3.	Pedagogic research was for the first time recognized as a disciplinary-based research field in the 2008 U.K. Research Assessment Exercise, which determines status and funding based on an assessment of research activity in university departments. Disciplines could seek nominees for their national assessment panels, and I was honored to be nominated for the Social Policy and Social Work Panel. I am continuing this role for the subsequent Research Excellence Framework (2014), a role that gives a fascinating window into pedagogic research across the discipline.

Where are we now as a result of such developments? I would strongly endorse Marion Bogo's recommendation for a systematic study of the field of pedagogic research for social work and her view that strategies to expand the pedagogic research community could emerge from a better understanding of elements that produce success in this field. A 360-degree study would need to address the researchers themselves and their research, the stakeholders, the policy makers, and the funders. Pedagogic research funding is scarce: In the United Kingdom, small-scale research funding is available from the HEA; the Department of Health, which currently funds social work education, funds a Social Care Workforce Research Initiative (Department of Health, 2011) that has included nine studies, two of which were about social work education. Might the newly launched English College of Social Work and the American Council on Social Work Education be lobbied for their support in seeking funding for an independent two-country study? Building in a comparison with medical education could also be illuminating; colleagues there have developed a distinct subdiscipline as both educators and researchers that we might learn from. Such a study must surely be in the interests of the process and outcomes of professional education and practice fit for the 21st century.

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Not surprisingly, I strongly support all of the ideas presented by my colleagues and am particularly pleased that they have stressed the importance of translational research, studies on the outcomes of social work services, empirical scholarship that demonstrates the value of social work interventions, and scholarship and research on social work pedagogy. Notably, these areas of research are all timely and necessary to advance knowledge in our field. In my own thinking about scholarship, however, I cast the net a bit wider.

Currently, most of our top journals publish a relatively good mix of quantitative and qualitative empirical studies as well as conceptual articles. However, given the recent thrust in the academy for faculty to obtain federal grants and publish empirical studies based on these grants, there has been a corresponding move away from conceptual articles that promote innovative approaches to curriculum and education and conceptual articles that address cutting-edge topics or groundbreaking ideas. Clearly, it is extremely important to publish sound and relevant empirical studies related to practice and education, but I believe that it is equally important that social work scholarship strive for a better balance between novel perspectives that present original and thought-provoking ideas and manuscripts that are primarily based on data collection and analysis. Although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive, empirical studies are often written in “researchese” and are not accessible to most practitioners whose primary language is that of practice, rather than research. In my experience, the journal articles that make a lasting impression on faculty, students, and practitioners are those that are accessible and stimulate both thought and debate, whether they be empirically or conceptually based.

Regrettably, the recent emphasis on grant-funded research has led to a decline in what I consider to be the great thinkers in the social work profession. Some names that come to mind are the late Max Siporin, Howard Goldstein, and Carel Germain, scholars whose works informed our profession for decades. Currently, scholars such as Dennis Saleebey, Eileen Gambrill, Edward Canda, and Alex Gitterman, for example, continue to produce cutting-edge publications that have expanded our thinking about social work practice and education. For practical reasons related to the changing criteria for tenure and promotion, it is unlikely that newly-minted faculty will carry on this tradition. And yet, conceptual work that stimulates the way we think about people and practice is every bit as valuable as are empirical studies. I am not suggesting that this should be seen as pitting one type of scholarship against the other, because inspiring but untested ideas can and should be used to provide a solid base for future research.

Another area that I believe is necessary to add to our knowledge base is the development of theory for education and practice. Social work researcher and New York Times best-selling author Brené Brown provides an excellent example of the type of scholarship that can advance theory development in our field. As perhaps the preeminent grounded theory (GT) researcher in social work, Brown (2007, 2010, 2012) has authored books based on theories developed from her GT research that have not only received national and international acclaim, but have also led to the development of a curriculum that is now being widely used in programs for substance use disorders (Brown, 2009). The melding of research and theory development that is then used to inform education and practice has the potential to lead to innovation as well as a better emic understanding of the complexity of human life.

Finally, looking forward in the 21st century, I think it is imperative that we also begin to examine the potential of digital and multimedia scholarship. Although this is a newly emerging mode of knowledge dissemination in most disciplines, it is not one that we can afford to ignore if we are truly committed to producing empirical, theoretical, and conceptual scholarship that will continue to advance knowledge for practice and education now and for the future.

Susan P. Robbins

University of Houston

Editor-in-Chief