new technology in the human services

NTHS Vol: 10(4) pp24-26

Published by ProCare
Available from:
ProCare,
CHST,
School of Social Sciences,
University of Southampton,
Southampton SO17 IBJ,
UK

 

Neil Ballantyne is a social work lecturer at the University of Strathclyde and is currently working with funding from the Use of the MANs Initiative (UM), in Scotland, to develop web based teaching materials for social work.

Contact him at:
Department of Social Work,
University of Strathclyde,
Jordanhill Campus,
76 Southbrae Drive,
Glasgow. G13 1PP.
Tel: +44 (0) 141 950 3373
Fax: +44 (0) 141 950 3474
Email: n.j.ballantyne@strath.ac.uk
WWW: http://weber.strath.ac.uk

Research Methods for Social Work & Nursing

Reviewed by Neil Ballantyne

Software specifications

This ProCare module entitled 'Research Methods for Social Work and Nursing' aims to, 'help students understand the realities of research, to appreciate research theory and methods in a practical context, and to be able to carry out a research assignment'.

The program is provided on two floppy discs capable of installation on a computer running Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, or in a network environment. The program occupies around 5Mb and requires a graphics driver capable of and set at 256 colours or above. Installation is very painless with lots of help to assist the user throughout the installation process and clear technical advice offered in the accompanying user guide. In fact the program, and its accompanying documentation, excels in offering clear and friendly advice in all aspects of program use: from installation, to browsing, to curriculum integration.

The main menu presented on the opening screen is attractive and well laid out offering a series of headings which outline the content of the module in two parts. It supports flexible use by permitting users to enter any of the module's nine units from the opening screen.

Description of Software

The module is comprehensive in its coverage taking the student from forming an initial research question, to methods of disseminating results. However, its best use is likely to be supplementary to other modes of teaching rather than as unitary module. Part 1 consists of four units introducing the student to research and the research process:

  • Introduction to research;
  • Research in context;
  • Setting the scene;
  • Stages in planning.

Part 2 consists of five units which explore research methods in greater detail:

  • Using existing data;
  • Gathering new data;
  • Research approaches;
  • Analysis;
  • Presentation and implementation.

Clicking on any of the unit titles takes the user into a tidily organised working area with a main working window on the left, some topic headings on the right and navigation buttons above. At any time from the working window the user can browse a glossary of key words, examine the bibliography, or retrieve a pop-up notepad facility to make notes on content (saveable to the hard disk or, more importantly, to the students floppy disk).

Navigation takes a little getting used to, and naive computer users will need some orientation, but it's fairly easy to find your way around aided by a backtrack button, a bookmark function, and the hypertext topic menu on the right hand side. A helpful progress chart enables the user to view an overview of all units and topics within units, highlighting those already viewed and the percentage of the whole module viewed.

An engaging and interactive toolkit is also accessible from the working area. The toolkit comprises: an exercise in interviewing, an exercise on assessing priorities, a questionnaire design exercise, a random sampling generator, a percentage calculator, a program to demonstrate the use of graphs in presentations, and an exercise to spot coding errors in data. The toolkit also gives access to two case studies used in the main program and some external links to other programs including Netscape and SPSS (NB. as long as the programs are available on the machine and the software has been properly configured to make the link). The toolkit adds considerable value to the module and is bound to engage the interest of students. It's fun to play around with but each of its elements are also carefully integrated into the main body of the teaching material (so, for example, the random number generator is accessible from the topic on sampling). I especially liked the interview exercise enabling the student to view different ways of approaching the asking of sensitive questions - this approach could built on in future versions perhaps incorporating use of multimedia.

The supporting documentation (including the installation notes, user guide, and teaching and learning guide) is excellent and written by people who demonstrate a deep understanding of integrating courseware into the curriculum and appreciate the needs of tutors for flexibility in using courseware. The teaching and learning guide offers tutors sound advice on identifying suitable pathways through the materials and on tailoring the module to the needs of their particular student group and specific learning context.

Content

Moving on to the content of the package I found this to be comprehensive, clear and well designed. The authors intend the module to be, '...a theoretically sound but essentially practical 'how to do it' learning resource.', and in this they succeed. The module is pitched appropriately for use in undergraduate level nursing and social work professional education. The authors' constant linking of social work practice skills with the skills required of a researcher helps to demystify the research process - and make the module very relevant for use in a practitioner research programme. Active learning is encouraged by the use of case material which weaves in and around discussion of the research process. Students are challenged to reflect on research issues and offered canned feedback from the authors. There are so many requests to reflect and make notes that at times I wondered if students might not tire of this technique, but this may simply be a caution to tutors to follow the advice of the authors and think carefully about pathways through the material and integration with the curriculum. Most exercises permit students to select a nursing or social work practice example helping to integrate learning in the context of the two disciplines.

The authors are careful to point out that the module does not offer detailed discussion of sophisticated statistical techniques, though it does deal with tabulation and cross tabulation. As someone who has grappled with SPSS, I couldn't resist a wry smile when I read in one section that... '...when the possible use of statistics arises you will be pointed towards computer programs which will do the job for you!'

Although the emphasis throughout is firmly on the practicalities of doing research, ethical issues and methodological debates are also discussed.

One surprising little blip in my experience of the module came in the section on literature search where an exercise asking the student to identify the main professional and academic journals in their discipline offered the rather surprising feedback that there aren't many social work journals in the UK, the main ones being BJSW and Community Care. In the nursing subject area the feedback suggested that there were many journals but (in what looks like an incomplete sentence) then fails to identify any. I would have thought the authors could have offered more guidance here.* Also, although the section on conducting a literature search mentions use of the web and identifies some on-line bibliographic databases more could have been said on this subject . Since the program has the capability to make external links to websites, links to some of the web based databases such as BIDS could have been built in.

In conclusion, this is a thoughtfully designed module which offers a valuable and highly flexible learning resource to the undergraduate social work or nursing student. Although heavily reliant on text based presentation, considerable value is added by the reflective and interactive exercises scattered throughout the module. It would be nice, in future versions, to see the incorporation of multimedia components such as video clips to demonstrate interview skills for example, and the incorporation of larger and manipulable datasets into the case material. However, in the meantime, the ProCare package represents excellent value for money.

* Editor's note: The comments made in this paragraph were referred to ProCare who have made changes to the content to rectify the omission of Nursing Journals and include a fuller range of Social Work Journals.

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Last updated 1 November 2000

The journal has now ceased publication (2003)