What is practice research and how do we go about doing it?

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What is practice research and how do we go about
doing it?

• Jo MoriartySouthampton 5th October 2007

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Outline

• Definition
• What is practice research?
• Barriers to achieving it
• Examples
• Suggesting that we underestimate what has been
  achieved
• Discussion

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Ever felt like this?

• Adapted (gratefully) from McLeod (1999)
• Do you sometimes read research articles and feel
  they bear no relationship to what you do?
• In your work, are there times when you want to
  know more about why something is happening?
• Would you like to know more about what other
  social workers do and what works for them?
• Do you have a sense books are telling you what
  you already know?

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And this?

• As you have become more experienced, are you more
  aware of contradictions and paradoxes in what you
  do?
• If yes, you may be ready to embark on
  practitioner research!
• John McLeod, (1999) Practitioner Research in
  Counselling, London, Sage Publications Ltd, pp 1-2

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Starting point

• Pawson and colleagues (2003) identified five
  different types of knowledge
• Organisational knowledge
• E.g. regulation and Codes of Practice
• (GSCC, BASW)
• Practitioner knowledge
• Often personal and context specific

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Types of knowledge

• Service user knowledge
• Knowledge gained from personal experience
  (experts by experience)
• Research knowledge
• Most orthodox type of knowledge
• Policy community knowledge
• Agencies, government departments, think tanks

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Read more about it

• Types and quality of knowledge in social care
• Ray Pawson, Annette Boaz, Lesley Grayson, Andrew
  Long and Colin Barnes
• http//www.scie.org.uk/publications/knowledgerevie
  ws/kr03.pdf
• Paper copies free

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Trevithicks framework
Practice knowledge
Theoreticalknowledge
Knowledge
Factual knowledge
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Based on(1)

• Theories that
• illuminate our understanding of people,
  situations and events
• analyse the role, task and purpose of social work
• relate to direct practice, such as practice
  approaches and perspectives

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Based on(2)

• Factual knowledge
• Legislation
• Agency policies
• Practice knowledge
• Way book knowledge is transformed into
  something useable and useful

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So what?

• Increasing importance given to evidence based
  approaches
• Five outcomes for children in Every Child Matters
• Hierarchy of knowledge
• Privileges some types of knowledge over others

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Why we need more practice research

• Some types of knowledge easier to explain and
  justify
• Explicit knowledge
• Research/policy community
• Implicit or tacit knowledge harder to identify
  and describe
• Difference between knowing what and knowing
  how
• Often associated with practice

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But

• Can those pesky researchers ever agree!
• Idea that there is a distinction between explicit
  and implicit knowledge has been challenged
• Jashapara (2007) false distinction
• Similarities with Trevithicks (2007) framework

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Barriers to practice research

• Funding
• Harder to access if on the outside
• Resources
• Adequacy of some professional training
• Variable access to resources (books, journals and
  databases)
• Today
• Opportunity to help break them down

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Definition

• Research carried out by practitioners for the
  purpose of advancing their own practice (McLeod,
  1999 p8)
• About counselling but equally relevant to social
  work

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Example 1

• Miracles R them solution-focused practice in a
  social services duty team (Hogg and Wheeler,
  2004)
• Short term goal-focused approach based on idea
  that people already have resources that will help
  them to change
• Team manager thought would improve service user
  involvement and reduce staff burnout so team
  trained in this approach

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What they did

• Would it be feasible for other teams to be
  trained in this approach?
• Undertook focus groups and interviews
• Identified benefits and need for management
  support
• Developed resources and training
• Expanded to rest of authority

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Example 2

• Fair play creating a better learning climate for
  social work students in social care settings
  (Barron, 2004)
• Developed as a response to a student on practice
  placement being confused about his role in a
  setting where there was no defined social work
  role

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What he did (1)

• Are the experiences of social work students
  different in social work and social care
  settings?
• Interviewed
• six students in six sites
• Supervisors
• Questionnaires to tutors
• Informal discussion with day centre workers

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What he did (2)

• Found that students and supervisors in social
  work settings were clearer about their role
• Suggested need for supervisor training
• Identified role for more whole-team discussions
• Discussed how it would influence his own future
  practice

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Example 3

• Health care professionals' death attitudes,
  experiences, and advance directive communication
  behavior (Black, 2007)
• Slightly different to other examples
• Focus is on research about practice
• Spent over 20 years as social worker and care
  manager with older people

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What she did (1)

• Are professionals working with older people
  influenced by their own attitudes to death when
  discussing advance directives?
• Survey of 135 nurses, physicians and social
  workers in upstate New York

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What she did (2)

• Found that attitudes were influenced by personal
  experiences
• More inclined to discuss if
• Took positive attitude to afterlife
• Had recent personal experience of terminal
  illness
• Work helped inform grant application to provide
  training for care managers

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Example 4

• Own research
• Study of social care services for people with
  dementia
• Sampling framework was 206 interviews with social
  workers
• Respite services for carers
• Interviewing team included social workers

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References

• Barron, C. (2004). Fair play creating a better
  learning climate for social work students in
  social care settings. Social Work Education, 23
  (1) 25-37. http//dx.doi.org/10.1080/026154703200
  0175683.
• Black, K. (2007). Health care professionals'
  death attitudes, experiences, and advance
  directive communication behavior. Death Studies,
  31 (6) 563-572. http//dx.doi.org/10.1080/0748118
  0701356993.
• Hogg, V. Wheeler, J. (2004). Miracles R them
  solution-focused practice in a social services
  duty team. Practice, 16 (4) 299-314.
  http//dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503150500046202.
• Moriarty, J. Webb, S. (2000). Part of Their
  Lives Community Care for People with Dementia.
  Bristol The Policy Press.

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Characterised by(1)

• Research question born out of personal experience
  and a need to know
• Aims to make a difference to practice
• Uses reflexive self awareness to gain access to
  underlying meanings

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Characterised by(2)

• Limited in scope to fit in with time and resource
  constraints
• Addresses moral and ethical dilemmas of role as
  researcher/practitioner
• (Designed to enhance and facilitate counselling
  process)

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Characterised by(3)

• Researcher retains ownership of knowledge
• Subjective personal knowing as well as
  impersonal objective or factual knowledge
• Results written up in a way consistent with
  principles listed above (McLeod, 1999 p8-9

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Doesnt mean

• Not a special category of research
• Overlap with internal evaluation/action research
• Although some have argued it is
• Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1990)
• Not either/or distinction
• Many professional researchers have backgrounds in
  practice
• Way of understanding where researchers come from

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Getting started

• Identification of a problem or issue
• Choosing how to examine it in a systematic way
• Collecting information
• Analysing information
• Sharing results and seeing how they can be
  implemented

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Nothings perfect

• Criticisms of practice research
• Concerns about absence of voice of service users
• Seen as too uncritical
• Concept has even been challenged
• Practitioner research evidence or critique?
  (Shaw, 2005)

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Practitioners have

• Advantage of existing knowledge about the topic
• Access to data
• Colleagues
• Service users
• Records

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Can get help from

• Advice from academics
• Practitioner training courses (McCrystal, 2000)
• Specialist resources
• Social Care Institute for Excellence
• www.scie.org.uk
• Textbooks for professionals and students

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Remember that

• Academic and professional researchers have
  problems too!
• Sampling
• Design
• Methods
• Not always apparent from write ups

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Summary Why do it?

• To help practitioners have more influence in
  decision making
• To increase the evidence base in a given area
• To think more carefully about the way we practise
• Confirm or discomfirm what we think (Taylor and
  White, 2006)