Qualitative Social Work

A study cannot be a good study unless proper ethical standards have been maintained. This article examines ethical thinking and practice in qualitative social work research. A review of a randomly selected sample of articles published in social work journals in the past decade was conducted, centered around four main issues: (a) prevention of harm; (b) empowerment-related aspects of the research process; (c) research-related benefits for participants and others; and (d) researchers’ technical competence. Our findings suggest that, as a general trend, ethical considerations are marginal in most phases of the studies that are reported in our journals. This raises questions as to the meaning of ‘proper ethical standards’ in qualitative social work research and as to the extent research ethics are regarded as important by researchers and journal editors in our field.

This article illustrates the use of students’ personal narratives and ‘thick description’ in reflecting on field and research experiences in a social work programme. Narrative as an educational tool enabled the authors to collaborate with students, field supervisors and each other in building reflexive links between past, present and future actions. In telling and retelling stories of lived experience around the tasks of social work, all players were able to come together and dialogue at deepening levels of understanding. The complexities involved in taking effective action were brought to the fore by the use of ‘thick description’ in students’ narratives of an identified learning moment. In the history of social work, stories abound of the struggles involved in consciously learning by doing. Our project allowed for such stories, written by students, to be used in facilitating the development of critical reflexivity as an integral part of becoming a practitioner. Subsequently, with student permission, some of these narratives were used in field educators’ workshops. This exercise has made for a weaving of theory, practice and reflection from the perspectives of students, academics and field educators to the shared ends of improving practice.

This article reflects on some of the issues arising in research involving young people as co-researchers. It addresses the challenges faced by one research team in implementing a lottery-funded project in England that addressed young people’s health needs. The researchers judged that a collaborative approach would be appropriate in this context, and considerable attention is paid to the role of young people as ‘co-researchers’. A number of significant methodological issues were identified, associated with key themes:- practicalities; ethics; validity; and value. The article addresses a number of challenges in each area, exploring the implications for projects that involve young people as co-researchers. The article discusses the strategies adopted by the researchers in order to resolve these concerns. The article concludes that there are real benefits to be gained from participatory research, which clearly offset the additional demands involved.

Over the last 15 years, social scientists increasingly have used focus groups as a method for collecting qualitative data. With focus groups, a moderator uses the group process with a small number of participants to stimulate discussion and obtain information on the beliefs, attitudes, or motivations of participants on a specific topic. Based upon a review of a sample of social work articles, researchers used focus groups to study a wide range of topics, with diverse and vulnerable populations, and in combination with other qualitative or quantitative methods. Although focus groups have limitations, they have the potential to be an important qualitative data collection method to capture information about the variety of issues and populations dealt with by the social work profession. In addition, social work researchers have the potential to further develop focus groups as a qualitative research method.