Fundamentals of Social Work Research - Softcover

Fundamentals of Social Work Research, Second Editon introduces research methods as an integrated set of techniques to investigate social issues and concerns common to social work practice.  This textbook succinctly and clearly connects research methods to evidence-based practice enabling students to develop skills to critically evaluate research literature and provides the foundation for students interested in practice evaluation and research.  The text encourages students to integrate issues of diversity and ethics as integral into their thinking as the plan and evaluate social work research.

Rafael J. Engel, PhD, is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD (1988) from the University of Wisconsin, his MSW (1979) from the University of Michigan, and his BA (1978) from the University of Pennsylvania. He coordinates the graduate certificate program in aging and is the principal investigator for the Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education. He has written Fundamentals of Social Work Research (with Russell Schutt) and Measuring Race and Ethnicity (with Larry E. Davis). He is co-editor-in-chief of the journal, Intergenerational Relations and a member of the editorial board of Race and Social Problems. He has authored journal articles on such topics as poverty in later life, welfare benefits, and depressive symptomatology, and he has written a variety of monographs reporting agency-based evaluations. His research experience includes funded research studies on gambling, faith-based organizations, and employment in later life as well as funded evaluation research studies on welfare-to-work programs and drug and alcohol prevention programs. His most recent research involves older adults and gambling prevention.

Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is a professor and the chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a lecturer on sociology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts Mental Health Center). He completed his BA, MA, and PhD (1977) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University (1977–1979). His other books include Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research and Fundamentals of Social Work Research (with Ray Engel), Making Sense of the Social World (with Dan Chambliss), and Research Methods in Psychology (with Paul G. Nestor)―all with SAGE Publications, as well as Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (Harvard University Press) and Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited with Larry J. Seidman and Matcheri S. Keshavan, also Harvard University Press). Most of his peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters focus on the effect of social context on cognition, satisfaction, functioning, and recidivism, the orientations of service recipients and of service and criminal justice personnel, and the organization of health and social services. He is currently a coinvestigator for a randomized trial of peer support for homeless dually diagnosed veterans, funded by the Veterans Administration.