A Hands-On Manual for Social Work Research: How to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Research

Amy Russell has designed the ultimate not-another-research-textbook textbook: a hands-on approach to teaching research that overcomes the resistance of the most apprehensive student. Included in this book and its supplemental materials are everything that both instructors and students need for a class built around the experience of conducting an entire practice-based research project. Students use actual data collected from their field experience to help them connect the importance of research to their own practice interests.

Russell frames her approach to research and evaluation, not as an abstract exercise in accountability, but instead as a tool to empower social service agencies. Rather than weighing students down with every possible test and procedure, this book walks readers through each discrete step of the research process and presents only the information they need to know when they need to know it! The book’s casual tone and playful attitude allays students’ anxieties and helps them not only understand the purpose of research but actually develop their own passion for the practice.