SOCW 6301 Week 1 Assignment: Peer Reviewed Social Work Journals

Reflect on the importance of using articles from compared to information from the Internet. Ask yourself who evaluates the accuracy of information that you might obtain websites like Wikipedia and what form of accountability there is to ensuring that information is up-to-date, reliable, and valid.

Review the Final Assignment: Article Review and Critique in Week 10 for this class. Note that you will have to locate an empirical research article from a peer-reviewed journal. Begin to search for an article. Practice navigating the databases in the library by searching topics of interest. (Note: At this point, you do not need to identify the actual empirical research article. The goal of this assignment is to begin getting comfortable navigating the databases in the library).

For this Assignment, complete the following:

Identify a list of 10 peer reviewed social work journals from the library that you might find helpful relative to your social work practice interests.
In a 100 word paragraph, discuss why using research studies from peer reviewed journals is important to the development of knowledge in social work. For example, discuss the advantages of having articles reviewed by other scholars and researchers. Then using a case illustration, describe how articles from peer-reviewed journals can help to inform your social work practice decisions with clients, communities, agencies, and/or social work policies.

Discussion 1: Sara Parker and Ethics

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One of the reasons there can be so much debate about ethical issues is because ethics are opinions informed by people’s values and people have different values. People can disagree about whether or not something is unethical, and, oftentimes, there is no right answer. In order to make decisions about what may be ethical or unethical, Yegidis (2018, p. 25) suggests focusing on these three questions:

“Who should benefit or suffer from the actions of the researcher?”
“Whose rights should take priority over those of others?”
“Does the end (increased knowledge) justify the means (the methods used to acquire it and their potential for harm)?”

For this Discussion, view the Sessions episode on the Parker family. As you do so, consider which, if any, ethical mandates or standards were violated.

Post a response explaining your reaction to the Parker episode. Be sure to address whether or not the social worker violated any ethical mandates or standards. Also explain which strategies could have been used to guide ethical practice. Finally, describe the responsibility of the social workers in the Parker case. Please use the resources to support your answers.

Discussion 2: The Research Approval Process

The early years of the 20th century were host to a number of unethical research studies. Research involving the way that a young child reacts to and generalizes fear responses, medical experiments conducted in concentration camps, and observing the way people respond to authority were just a few of the most famous experiments whose byproduct was placing clients in physical pain and/or mental anguish.

Since then, it has been recognized that research subjects need to be protected from the flagrant disregard of researchers. This week, you consider the guidelines in Walden University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) document, “Research Ethics FAQs for Doctoral Students in the Clinical/Intervention Fields: Practical Tips for Avoiding Delays and Problems in the Research Approval Process.”

Walden University (n.d.). Academic Guides: Research Ethics & Compliance: Welcome from the IRB. Retrieved September 12, 2016, from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/researchcenter/orec

Research Ethics FAQs for Doctoral Students in the Clinical/Intervention Fields: Practical Tips for Avoiding Delays and Problems in the Research Approval Process

Post a description of two ways the guidelines in Walden University’s IRB document may impact the selection of a research population, research setting, and/or research design. Please use the resources to support your answer.

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.