THIS INTRODUCTORY RESEARCH METHODS TEXT is intended for BSW students as their first introduction to social work research methodology, data analyses, and report writing. We have selected and arranged the contents so that it can be used in a one-semester undergraduate social work research methods course.

Goal of Book

Our book is absolutely geared for BSW students. It is not meant to be used at the graduate level. As in the previous editions, our goal has been to produce a “user-friendly,” straightforward introduction to social work research methods couched within the quantitative and qualitative traditions—the two approaches most commonly used to generate relevant social work knowledge. To accomplish our goal, we have strived to meet the following simple objectives:

• We have written a book for BSW students that would comply with the Council on Social Work Education’s (Council) research requirements. In fact, this book meets all of the Council’s requirement for the research content to be taught in all accredited undergraduate social work programs.
  
• We included only the core material that is realistically needed in order for BSW students to appreciate and understand the role of research in social work.
  
• Our guiding philosophy was to include only research material that they realistically need to know to function adequately as entry-level social work practitioners; information overload was avoided at all costs.
  
• Our book prepares social work students to become beginning critical consumers of the professional research literature. Thus, it does not prepare them with the necessary knowledge and skills to actually conceptualize, operationalize, and carry out a research study—no introductory undergraduate research methods text can accomplish this formidable task.
  
• We explain terms with social work examples that students will appreciate. Many of our examples center around women and minorities, in rec-ognition of the need for social workers to be knowledgeable of their special needs and problems. We have given special consideration to the application of research methods to the study of questions concerning these groups.
  
• We have written our book in a crisp style using direct language.
  
• Our book is easy to teach from and with.
  
• We provide BSW students with a solid foundation for more advanced social work research courses and texts.

Like all introductory social work research books, ours had to include relevant basic research content. Our problem here was not so much what content to include as what to leave out. The research methodology content that we have touched on in passing has been treated in-depth elsewhere. Likewise, the statistical content contained in our book is also covered in detail in more advanced books.

But our elementary book is a primer, an introduction, a beginning. Our aim was to skim the surface of the research enterprise—to put a toe in the water, so to speak and to give beginning social work students a taste of what it might be like to swim.

Organization of Book

With the above goal and objectives in mind, we have organized our book to follow the basic phases of the generic research process—from a quantitative perspective (Chapter 2) and from a qualitative perspective (Chapter 3). Both chapters begin where every researcher begins—that is, with finding a meaningful problem area to study and developing research questions and hypotheses.

We proceed from measuring variables, selecting samples, constructing research designs, collecting and analyzing data, through report writing. Our book is organized in a way that makes good sense in teaching beginning social work research methods. Many other sequences that could be followed would make just as much sense, however. The chapters in our book were consciously planned to be independent of one another. They can be read out of the order in which they are presented, or they can be selectively omitted.

We hope that the levity with which we have treated the social work research enterprise will be accepted in the same spirit as it was intended. Our goal was not to diminish research; it was to present the research process with warmth and humanness so that the student’s first experience with it will be a positive one.