Critical Review of Qualitative and Quantitative paper PDF

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Critical Review of Qualitative paper

Introduction This segment presents a critical exploration of the paper ‘How Children Become Invisible in Child Protection Work: Findings from Research into Day-to-Day Social Work Practice’ by Harry Ferguson. The paper was published, in 2017, in the British Journal of Social Work. For this critical review, a critical appraisal tool designed by Long (2004) will be used to support and frame the assessment of the quality of the researcher’s methods. The review will loosely follow the structure presented by the tool to organise the review in a way which is easy to follow for the benefit of the reader.

Aims of the Research and the Appropriateness of the Methodology The paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study on the interactions between social workers, children and their families within everyday child protection work and how this impacts on the children’s involvement and visibility within case-work. The aims of this study were clearly stated within the abstract of the paper and again highlighted within the introduction section. The research was contextualised well by the researcher who discussed, in brief, the current research within this field and highlighted the absence of subjective research which has adequately investigated the children’s experiences in child protection cases.

The qualitative methodology adopted by the researcher shows up on all appearances to be significant and suitable and likely to provide the sorts of information required to get to the viewpoints of the social work practitioners, children and their families. A key theme of qualitative research is an attention on perspectives, meanings, understandings and practices of

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participants (Richie and Lewis, 2003). In the paper under review, the researcher highlights the theoretical underpinning of the research as using a psycho-dynamic, sociological and systemic perspective in order to understand the impact of social worker’s lived experience has on their practice. The research highlights the lack of psycho-social approaches in current research of interactions between social workers and service users. This is a significant stance to analyse from as it considers the impact that organisational processes, lived experiences and emotional lives has on the daily interactions in everyday case-work (Trevithick 2012).

Overall, the approach is appropriate and it can be assumed that the researcher would be able to access viewpoints of the social work practitioners, children and their families through qualitative methods.

Appropriateness of the Research Design The researcher used a variety of data collection instruments within the research study. The researcher’s primary data collection method was a combination of interviews and observations. The research design and methods should be relevant and should fit within the overall theoretical framework of the research (Silverman, 2005). Therefore, the data collections used are appropriate to the research as they will enable the researcher to gain an in depth understanding of the lived experiences of the social work participants (Legard et al., 2003). The use of interviews is a common method for collecting data within qualitative research as it provides the researcher with first hand views and opinions from participants (Steinberg, 2015). The use of observations is advantageous in the fact the researcher is able to ‘see’ things for themselves and also gain an insight into the interactions in their natural settings (Steinberg, 2015). However, with observations, there is a high potential for the observations being subjectively interpreted and therefore can produce biased findings. As the

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researcher was observing within the natural settings of day-to-day social work practice there was also scope for their presence to have affected the setting or interaction and consequently affects the validity of the findings. The researcher acknowledges the vulnerability of the participants and considers the possibility that their presence may have led to service user’s co-operation due to their desire to avoid negative repercussions if they refused and how this may have impacted on the trueto-life interactions. Whilst this was explored there was no indication of how the researcher managed this issue within their research and this leaves an ethical and methodological gap.

There is little to no indication of the techniques or an example of the questions used within the interviews. The researcher, however, does report the questions in which the researcher intended to answer and that this is what guided the data collection. Subsequently, the lack of clarity means the reviewer is unable to assess the appropriateness and quality of the data collection instrument.

A small sample was used within the research, although the size of the sample is considered to be suitable for qualitative research (Silverman, 2005) there are potential issues with the sample. These issues were not explored by the researcher. For example, the researcher discusses how he selected two local authorities to collect his sample which is appropriate to the aim of the study. From this, participants volunteered to take part. Firstly, as the sample was collected by participants from the two local authorities volunteering there is a high chance of these participants being biased/ having biased opinions on the research topic. It also difficult for the reviewer to assess whether the findings based on the sample is reliable or generalizable as those who volunteer might be systematically different to those who don’t (Ora 1965). The sample was described within the paper as consisting of 19 females and 5

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males (predominately white), this may produce an unequal representative of males’ viewpoints. However, the social work profession is made up of predominately females and so the sample is seen to be representable of the target population.

Although the researcher briefly touches on the ethical issues that were apparent within the study there is room for a more detailed exploration within the discussion section of the paper however, it is apparent that the researcher received ethical permission for this study. Whilst it is not mentioned within the report, it can be assumed that these issues were explored throughout this process. From further reading on the journals guidelines for authors it was found that authors must gain ethical permission from a university ethics committee prior to the commencement of the research in order for it to be published (British Journal of Social Work, 2018). Analysis and Findings Another limitation found within the methodology of the research was the lack of clarification of how the data collected was analysed by the researcher. The researcher does not provide any indication of how the data was analysed and so, leaves a gap in which the reviewer has no understanding of how the findings were produced. Having said this, the findings were discussed in great depth with the researcher providing case examples to show reasoning for these findings. The reviewer finds that due to the sample and the lack of clarity of analysis that the findings cannot be generalised for all social work practice within this field. However, the reviewer is mindful of the fact that in qualitative research being able to generalise findings is not an aim. Overall, the findings provide an excellent comprehension of the encounters between social workers and the families and what enables, or hinders, effective interventions and do appear to valuable and beneficial to those working within a child protection setting.

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Conclusion Despite the issues highlighted, the paper offers a lot of valuable and beneficial insights for students, practitioners and researchers with interests in social work practitioners and the families experiences and interactions within child protection work. Having said that, the reviewer finds, the methodology explored does not provide enough depth or discussion in order to assess whether or not the report provides a convincing account of rigor.

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References: British Journal of Social Work (2018). Instructions and Notes for Authors and Other Contributors. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/pages/General_Instructions BRYMAN, A. (1988). Quantity and Quality in Social Research. London: Unwin Hyman. LEGARD, R. KEEGAN, J. and WARD, K. (2003). In-depth Interviews. As cited in RITCHIE, J. and LEWIS, J. (eds.) Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers, London: Sage. pp. 138-169. LONG. A.F. (2004). Evaluation Tool for Qualitative Research. University of Salford. Available Online at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/…/Evaluation_Tool_for_Qualitative… ORA, J., P., JR. (1965) Characteristics of the Volunteer for Psychological Investigations, Nashville, Vanderbilt University. RITCHIE, J. and LEWIS, J. (eds.) (2003) Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers, London: Sage SILVERMAN, D. (2005). Doing Qualitative Research. London: Sage. STEINBERG, D. (2015). The Social Work Student's Research Handbook. 2nd ed. Oxford: Routledge.

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TREVITHICK, P. (2012) Social Work Skills and Knowledge: A Practice Handbook, Maidenhead, Open University Press

Critical Review of Quantitative paper Introduction This segment presents a critical exploration of the paper ‘The Empirical Status of Social Work Dissertation Research: Characteristics, Trends and Implications for the Field’ by Brandy Maynard, Michael Vaughn and Christine Sarterschi. The paper was published, in 2014, in the British Journal of Social Work. For this critical review, a critical appraisal tool for quantitative research (designed by Jackson, 2011 as an adaptation from Long et al, 2002) will be used to support and frame the assessment of the quality of the researcher’s methods. The review will loosely follow the structure presented by the tool to organise the review in a way which is easy to follow for the benefit of the reader.

Aims of the Research and Appropriateness of Methodology This paper reports on the characteristics and trends of research methods used within social work doctoral dissertations within a 10-year period. The aims of this study are articulated clearly within the abstract of the paper. The researchers also provide an in depth exploration of the current research within this field as well as outlining the purpose of the research within this field.

The quantitative method adopted by the researchers appears to be in all aspects appropriate to the aim of the study. Quantitative research can be described as a “research strategy that emphasises quantification in the collection and analysis of data…” (Bryman, 2012:35). This

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means that quantitative research is focused on answering questions such as: how many…? and to what extent…? (Rasinger, 2013).

Quantitative research has been seen to be

underpinned by the concept of positivism in which it relies heavily on facts and data which can be scientifically proven. However, it disregards the deeper meanings of findings and does not take into consideration the possibility of social phenomenon (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998). Overall, this method is appropriate as the researchers aimed to find out the extent to which the year of the research impacts on the type of research methods and subject under analysis.

Appropriateness of Research Design The main method of data collection utilised by the researchers was a targeted search from an online eBook library (ProQuest). The search focussed on dissertations from US member schools of the Group for Advancement of Doctorial Education between 1998-2008. The researcher provides a wealth of information on how they utilised this including the key search words terms they used in order to generate the sample. This use of probability sampling produced a large sample of 3088 in which 20% were randomly chosen (618). Random sampling is appropriate for this research as it offers the researcher with the highest possibility of generalisation as it is the low tendency to be biased as each participant has been chosen by chance (Steinberg, 2005). The researcher acknowledges that this search method has its limitations and may not have given an accurate or representative sample as it only considered information based on the abstracts of each dissertation.

As the sample was extracted from an online eBook library the researched would not have been provided with a detailed account of the characteristics of the participants and therefore did not explore any cultural issues or differences within the research. In saying this, it is also

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important to highlight that the subject and design of an individual’s dissertation may have been influenced by something more personal such as their culture and not just the ‘sign of the times’.

The researcher does not discuss on any ethical issues that were apparent within the study, this may be due to the fact that there was no need for informed consent as the dissertations were published on ProQuest and available to anyone. Although it is not mentioned within the paper, it can be assumed that the ethical issues were explored prior to publication. From wider reading on the journals guidelines for authors it was found that authors must gain ethical permission from a university ethics committee prior to the commencement of the research in order for it to be published (British Journal of Social Work, 2018).

Analysis and Findings For this study, the researchers designed a coding instrument in order to analyse and categorise their data. The researcher explores this in great detail using tables and figures to further explain their findings. It is considered by the researchers, the reliability of this instrument and for this reason it was pilot tested on data not included within this piece of research. The researchers also state that, to lessen researcher bias, the data was coded separately by both researchers and produced a 93/94% interrater agreement within the pilot test. However, for the data used within this research only one researcher used the coding instrument and therefore may have produced biased findings.

The results of the research are adequately displayed within tables and described in detail within the discussion section. The researchers relate and compare they key findings from the study with other research findings within this field and offers possible explanations for each.

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The results were found to produce an insignificant relationship/association between the year and the research methods used. On the contrary, the researcher found a statistically positive correlation between the year and the frequency of secondary data used within the dissertations as the p value for this was p...