ASSIGNMENT 2 PROFESSIONAL RESOURCE COLLECTION & RESEARCH
ARTICLE PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL
Aims of Assignment The overarching aim of Assignment 2 is to
enhance your ability to effectively and efficiently locate and appraise
different types and sources of information and knowledge relevant to
specialized practice in your area of interest, consistent with your
professional goals and aspirations. Specific aims of this assignment include
the following:
1) To guide your
exploration of different types and sources of information and knowledge
relevant to your professional interests and practice knowledge needs.
2) To enhance your
ability to easily and quickly locate relevant practice information and
knowledgeincluding theoretical, epidemiological, and empirical knowledge.
3) To strengthen your
capacity to effectively use evidence hierarchies and Impact Factors to
determine and locate the best available evidence for addressing specified
practice problems and questions; and
4) To help you build
your practice library, that is, your collection of professional information,
publications, resources, and materials. Locating and using existing
knowledgeespecially empirical (i.e., research) knowledgeis an essential skill
that you will need as a professional social worker in order to make ethical and
research-informed practice decisions. In fact, almost every aspect of your work
as a professional social worker can be enhanced by your ability to effectively
and efficiently locate, appraise and use existing information and knowledge.
This includes using existing information and knowledge to guide the following
professional activities
: Assessing your clients strengths and needs;
understanding and interpreting the meaning of your clients behavior;
establishing intervention, treatment or care plan goals;
understanding how cultural factors (including but not
limited to race, ethnicity, nationality, immigrant status, gender, sexual
orientation, class, [dis]ability status, and age) intersect with one another to
affect development, behavior, and outcomes;
determining the best interventions, services, and programs
to address your target populations needs; developing strategies for engaging
your target population in interventions, services, and programs (and keeping
them engaged);
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determining how best to assess implementation and effectiveness of
interventions, services, programs, and policies;
conducting
organizational or community needs assessments;
developing program
reports and grant proposals for funding; and
carrying out program evaluations or being involved in
research studies. At some point in your career, the activities presented above
will almost certainly be part of your everyday life as a professional social
worker. And again, every single one of them can be enhanced by your ability to
effectively and efficiently locate, appraise and use existing information and
knowledge.
Assignment 2 consists
of locating sources of information and existing knowledge relevant to the
EFFECTIVENESS practice questions that you formulated in Assignment 1.
Throughout this course, you will learn a core set of scientific and research
related concepts and terminology that you are expected to understand and apply
in the final part of Assignment 2, which consists of a critical appraisal of a
peer-reviewed journal article describing an empirical research study. Whereas
in Assignment 2 you will focus on locating and appraising the overall level of
evidence in the existing body of empirical research, in the final assignment
for the course, you will be expected to critically appraise the quality and
applicability of evidence obtained from a single empirical research article and
study related to the effectiveness practice question that is the focus of the
assignments. Ultimately, you also will be asked to apply the best available
empirical research evidence for the effectiveness practice question you are
addressing to improve professional social work practice within your specialized
area of interest. Format & Approach As with the previous assignment,
Assignment 2 uses a worksheet format to provide you with structured guidance
and opportunities to enhance your knowledge and skills. The assignment consists
of three parts. The first part of the assignment involves locating a variety of
types and sources of information and existing knowledge. The second part of the
assignment involves locating and ranking empirical research publications.
Finally, the third part of the assignment asks that you critically appraise the
level of evidence offered by empirical research publications.
PART 1. LOCATING TYPES AND SOURCES OF INFORMATION &
EXISTING KNOWLEDGE (25 POINTS TOTAL) Instructions This assignment requires you
to address the practice question you formulated in Part 3 of Assignment 1 that
relates to the EFFECTIVENESS of an intervention, program or policy. Based on
the feedback provided by your instructor on Assignment 1, feel free to revise
your effectiveness practice question as needed.
1.
To begin, please specify the social work
EFFECTIVENESS Practice Question you are seeking to answer. Your practice
question should be formatted using the PICO framework and include each of the
PICO components. (5 POINTS) For example: Among ____________________, what is
the effect of ____________________ on ____________________ compared with
____________________ ?
Complete the rest of this assignment about the practice question you
specified above. To complete the assignment, you will need to conduct an
exhaustive literature search to locate different types and sources of
information and existing knowledge to contextualize the practice question that
you formulated. Use APA formatting for references mentioned in your responses.
Contextualizing Your
Practice Question 2. Professional Organization Provide the name and
link for a website for a national or international social work professional
organization related directly to your practice question or one of the
components of your practice question.
Also, in your own words, provide a brief description of the organization
and describe how the organization might be helpful to you and your professional
development. Please note that for our purposes, professional organizations are
not agencies or service providers, but rather, organizations that bring
together, inform, and support particular groups of social workers or
multidisciplinary professionals. (5 POINTS)
Name:
Link: Brief Description and How Helpful:
3.
Policy Find and, in your own words, briefly
describe a federal (i.e., national) or state level policy (i.e., law) related
directly to your practice question or one of the components of your practice
question. (5 POINTS) Policy Name and Reference: Brief Description:
4.
Statistical Epidemiological Data – Provide two
(2) important statistics related directly to your social work practice
question. One statistic should be a point-in-time statistic related to the
current size or scope of the problem, population or outcome addressed by your
practice question. The other statistic should be an historical or trend
statistic related to the size or scope of the problem, population or outcome
addressed by your practice question. The latter statistic should provide a
picture of how the size or scope has changed or stayed the same over time.
Please provide the references for the sources of the statistics. (10 POINTS
TOTAL) a) Current Point-in-Time Statistic (5 POINTS):
Statistic: Reference: b) Historical or Trend Statistic (5 POINTS):
Statistic: Reference:
PART 2. LOCATING EMPIRICAL RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS AND EVIDENCE (50 POINTS
TOTAL) Instructions For this section, you are asked to locate and describe ten
(10) empirical research publications related directly to your practice
question. For purposes of this assignment, the publications you locate will
constitute the body of empirical knowledge relevant to your practice
question. You are also asked to place the publications into a hierarchy of
evidence, as instructed below.
1. Hierarchy of Evidence – Using
the table template below (or the format provided by your instructor), summarize
ten (10) publications that provide empirical evidence for addressing your
effectiveness practice question (40 POINTS).
Your table should place the
publications offering the highest level of evidence at the top of the hierarchy
and the ones offering the lowest level of evidence at the bottom (10 POINTS).
For each publication, include the following information (40 POINTS):
a. Full reference (not in-text
citation) using APA format, and
b. Type of publication (e.g.,
peer-reviewed journal article, non peer-reviewed journal article, book, book
chapter, report, etc.). For journal articles, also provide the following
information:
c. Type of evidence or study
designed offered in the article (e.g., meta-analysis, systematic review, RCT,
correlational study, case study, qualitative study, etc.), and
d. Impact Factor for the journal
and year in which the article was published.
To locate the impact factor, refer
to the journal in which the article was published or to the Journal Citation
Reports (JCR) website: https://jcr-clarivate-com.libproxy1.usc.edu/. If there
is no impact factor for the publication, state the reason why
Table 1. Hierarchy of Evidence Table (NOTE: Only the first
ten (10) publications provided will be considered by your instructor.)
Full Citation (using
APA formatting) Type of Publication Type of Evidence or Study Design Journal
Impact Factor
PART 3. CRITICALLY APPRAISING LEVELS OF EVIDENCE (25 POINTS
TOTAL) Instructions In this part of the assignment, you are asked to critically
appraise the level of evidence offered by the empirical research publications
presented in the hierarchy you created in the previous section. Answers should
demonstrate your ability to critically apply key concepts and terminology and
to incorporate course readings, content and discussions.
1. In relation to your
practice question, HOW STRONG IS THE LEVEL OF EVIDENCE offered in the
collective body of publications that you described in the previous section
(i.e., the body of knowledge)? Consider the type of practice question you are
addressing as well as the types of publications in your hierarchy, the types of
evidence and study designs offered in the publications, and the impact factors
of the journals in your hierarchy. Critically discuss your answer. (10 POINTS)
Strength: r High
r Moderate r Low r Insufficient Critical
Discussion:
2. Next, select the ONE article that provides the highest
level of evidence for addressing your specified effectiveness practice question
and provide the full citation for the article and a link to the article. The
article you select will be the one that you critically appraise for Assignment
3. Please note the requirements for the article you select1 (5 POINTS): a. The
article should have been published in a peer-reviewed journal that has an
Impact Factor for the year the article was published.
b. The article should
describe primary (i.e., original) research and data. In other words, the
article you select and appraise MAY NOT BE a meta-analysis, systematic review,
summary review, or secondary data analysis, even though these types of articles
might be included in your hierarchy. 1 Your instructor may specify additional
requirements. Page 9 of 10
c. The article should describe a group-based experiment or
quasi-experiment that tests at least two different interventions, programs, policies,
strategies, etc.
d. The article should
be no more than five (5) years old. Full Citation of Article: Link: 3. In
relation to your practice question, HOW STRONG IS THE LEVEL OF EVIDENCE offered
in the RESEARCH ARTICLE that you selected? Consider the type of practice
question you are addressing as well as type of publication, type of evidence or
study design, and the Impact Factor of the journal in which the article is
published. Critically discuss your answer. (10 POINTS) Strength: r High r Moderate r Low r Insufficient Critical
Discussion: References
Finally, provide a
list of references for all materials referenced above in Parts 1 3 using
correct APA 7 th edition formatting.