SWP2RES RESEARCH FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE A

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SWP2RES RESEARCH FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE A

• MARTIN RYAN
• LECTURE 5 - Using Critical Thinking in reading
  and assessing research literature

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• Social workers need ... to think critically
  about their practice - for example, to judge
  which interviewing and intervention techniques
  are best suited to each situation/ client, to
  decide what information to use (and to ignore) in
  formulating an assessment, to evaluate the
  success of their approach, and to decide how and
  when to terminate the process (Mumm Kersting,
  1997).

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• Clearly the evaluation of evidence is an
  important part of the critical thinking process
  and decision making in social work and that
  evidence may well consist of research material.

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• Critical thinking involves the careful
  examination and evaluation of beliefs and
  actions. It requires paying attention to the
  process of reasoning, not just the product.

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Questions that arise when you think critically
include

• 1) How do I know a claim is true?
• 2) Who said the claim was accurate? What could
  their motives be? How reliable are these
  sources?
• 3) Are the presented facts correct?
• 4) Have any facts been omitted?

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• 5) Have there been any critical test of these
  claims? (Have any experimental studies been
  done? Were these studies relatively free of
  bias? Have their results been replicated? What
  samples were used? How representative were
  they? Was random assignment used?)
• 6) Are there other plausible explanations?
• 7) What appeals are used e.g.. to emotion or
  special interests?

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Why is critical thinking important in social work
practice?

• Some of the errors that may occur if incomplete
  or inaccurate views are accepted
• - misclassifying clients
• - continuing intervention too long
• - selecting weak intervention methods
• - increasing client dependency
• - overlooking client strengths
• - describing behaviour unrelated to its
  context
• - withdrawing intervention too soon

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What critical thinking can offer?

• 1) Evaluate the accuracy of claims
• 2) Evaluate arguments
• 3) Recognise informal fallacies
• 4) Recognise propaganda stratagems

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• 5) Recognise pseudoscience, fraud and quackery
• 6) Use language thoughtfully
• 7) Recognise affective biases
• 8) Avoid cognitive biases
• 9) Increase self-awareness

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Helpful distinctions in thinking critically about
practice beliefs and decisions

• 1) Widely accepted versus True
• 2) A feeling that something is true versus
  whether it is true
• 3) Truth versus Credibility
• 4) Personal Knowledge versus Objective
  Knowledge
• 5) Propaganda Bias versus Informed Point of
  View
• 6) Reasoning versus Persuasion

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COMMON PRACTICE FALLACIES (GIBBS GAMBRILL, 1999)

• 1) RELYING ON CASE EXAMPLES
• 2) RELYING ON TESTIMONIALS
• 3) VAGUENESS

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• 4) ASSUMING SOFTHEARTED THEREFORE SOFTHEADED
• 5) BEING BIASED
• 6) RELYING ON NEWNESS/TRADITION

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• 7) ACCEPTING UNCRITICAL DOCUMENTATION
  (GULLIBILITY)
• 8) POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC (AFTER THAT,THIS,
  THEREFORE THIS BECAUSE OF THAT). The mistaken
  belief that if event A precedes event B in
  time, than Event A has caused event B)
• 9) FOCUSSING ONLY ON SUCCESSES

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References

• Bowell, T., Kemp, G. (2005) (2nd Ed.) Critical
  Thinking A Concise Guide, London, Routledge.
• Gambrill, E. (1990) Critical Thinking in Clinical
  Practice Improving the Accuracy of Judgements
  and Decisions about Clients, San Francisco,
  Jossey-Bass.
• Gambrill, E. (2005) Critical thinking in clinical
  practice improving the quality of judgments and
  decisions. Hoboken, N.J. Wiley.
• Gambrill, E. (1997) Social Work Practice A
  Critical Thinkers Guide, New York, Oxford
  University Press.
• Gibbs, L. (1991) Scientific Reasoning for Social
  Workers Bridging the Gap between Research and
  Practice, New York, Macmillan.
• Gibbs, L. Gambrill, E. (1999) (Revised edition)
  Critical Thinking for Social Workers Exercises
  for the Helping Professions, Thousand Oaks, CA.
  Pine Forge Press.

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Next week Doing a Literature Review