Practitioner Research Evidence or Critique?

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Practitioner ResearchEvidence or Critique?

• Ian Shaw
• Health and Social Care RSU,
• Cardiff University

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three questions

• The relationship between practitioner research
  and mainstream academic social work research.
• An assessment of the scope for practitioner
  research to contribute to evidence based
  practice.
• Whether research by practitioners has potential
  for critique of practice and of social science.

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Practitioner research

• research carried out by practitioners for the
  purpose of advancing their own practice (John
  McLeod, 1999)

• Characteristics
• Direct data collection and management
• Professionals set its aims and outcomes
• intended practical benefits
• insider research
• Focus own practice

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Practitioner research (2)

• small scale and short term
• self-contained
• typically a lone activity
• own account research
• focus is not restricted. While it will commonly
  be evaluative, it may be descriptive,
  developmental or analytical

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Limitations of PR

• treats evidence too straightforwardly
• No cross-professional dialogue
• client-donor relationship to social science.
• client-donor relationship to human service
  agencies

• Neglects how styles of inquiry may perform as
  practice models
• deductive assumption about the theory/practice
  relationship
• silence of the service user.
• A too conventional writing voice.

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Practitioner Research in Social Care Cardiff
2002-3

• Screening audit of PR in social care
• Categories of PR in social care
• Theoretical sample of case studies

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Empirical issues

• Motives
• Consent and Ethics
• Fieldwork style
• Relation to research priorities
• Career and identity

• Usefulness
• Generalization
• Practice/university relations in PR
• ethics and practitioner involvement in PR

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Categories of PR
Practitioner Owned Practitioner Owned Agency Owned Agency Owned
formal approval formal approval formal approval formal approval
Higher education link Single data 8 8 0 0
Higher education link Multiple data 2 1 2 0
No higher education link Single data 0 1 0 6
No higher education link Multiple data 0 0 4 2
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PR Dimension 1 Ownership

• Individual
• Practitioner owned
• Practitioner use
• No formal approval
• Data on practitioner researchers practice

• Multiple
• Agency owned
• Planned/actual uses
• Formal approval
• Agency wide or multiple agencies
  
• Service use stakeholders

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PR Dimension 2Research activity

• Simple
• Single data type
• Single researcher
• Data on practitioner researchers practice
• (possibly absence of any formal approval)

• Complex
• Multiple data types
• Research team
• Actual utilization of results
• External ethical approval

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Inquiry and Practice

• Cf McIvor on PR skills and practice skills
• Is social work akin to research?
• Inductive practice theory building (Lang)
• Dilute qualitative research in s/w and the
  Translation of qualitative methods (Shaw)

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Capacity building

• RD
• PR specialists
• Government and funder strategy priorities

• Networking
• Eg Knud Ramain national project in Denmark
• RD and networking facilitate possibility of
  critique gt

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Practical PR and Critique

• PR and the sociology of practical knowledge
• Insiders and outsiders
• The complexities of practical judgement, eg
  Schwab and Schwandt

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PR and social justice

• PR, individualism and the silent service user
• Exemplars
• Carr and Kemmis an action research template for
  PR
• Janet Miller and collaborative teachers
• Fahl and Markand and critical psychology
• Critique-led PR and evidence-based practice

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The Cardiff PR Project

• Contacts
• Ian Shaw Shawif_at_Cardiff.ac.uk
• Alex Faulkner FaulknerAC_at_Cardiff.ac.uk
• Simon Keane KeaneS1_at_Cardiff.ac.uk
• The project is due to complete February 2003.
• We hope to do further comparative work on
  practitioner inquiry