Grading Gems: Appraising the Quality of Research for Social Work and Social Care

The impetus towards basing practice and policy decisions moreexplicitly on sound research requires tools to facilitate thesystematic appraisal of the quality of research encompassinga diverse range of methods and designs. Five exemplar toolswere developed and assessed in terms of their usefulness inselecting studies for inclusion in a systematic review. Thewidely used ‘hierarchy of evidence’ was adaptedand used to appraise internal validity. Four tools were thendeveloped to appraise the external validity dimensions of generalizability(two scales) and methods of data collection (two scales). Methodsof combining the scores generated by each tool were explored.Qualitative and quantitative studies were appraised, not separatedinto two spheres but by using complementary tools developedto appraise different aspects of rigour. There was a high levelof agreement between researchers in applying the tools to twenty-twostudies on decision making by professionals about the long-termcare of older people. The scales for internal validity and generalizabilitydiscriminated between the qualities of studies appropriately.The two tools to appraise data collection gave diverse results.Excluding studies that scored in the lowest category on anyscale appeared to be the scoring system that was most justifiable.This approach is presented to stimulate debate about the practicalapplication of the evidence-based initiative to social workand social care. This study may assist in developing clearerdefinitions and common language about appraising rigour thatshould further the process of selecting robust research forsynthesis to inform practice and policy decisions.     

Service Process and Quality in Therapeutic Foster Care: An Exploratory Study of One County System

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the quality of services in the therapeutic foster care programs used by one county in the Midwest. Using a consultative quality assurance review methodology, evaluators examined 67 randomly sampled cases across seven agencies to assess the service quality issues experienced by children. Following interviews with staff, foster parents, and children, and a review of case records, reviewers observed failures in service and in adherence to national program model standards and state regulations. The research indicates the need for consistent monitoring of child-placing agencies and the need for additional research linking service quality with foster care outcomes.     

The Cycle of Bias in Health Research: A Framework and Toolbox for Critical Appraisal Training

Recognizing bias in health research is crucial for evidence-based decision making. We worked with eight community groups to develop materials for nine modular, individualized critical appraisal workshops we conducted with 102 consumers (four workshops), 43 healthcare providers (three workshops), and 33 journalists (two workshops) in California. We presented workshops using a “cycle of bias” framework, and developed a toolbox of presentations, problem-based small group sessions, and skill-building materials to improve participants' ability to evaluate research for financial and other conflicts of interest, bias, validity, and applicability. Participant feedback indicated that the adaptability of the toolbox and our focus on bias were critical elements in the success of our workshops.     

On Systematic Reviews in Social Work: Observations from Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Law in Social Work Education

This paper draws on the experience of completing a systematicreview of teaching, learning and assessment of law in socialwork education. It reviews core elements of the process andquestions whether systematic reviews as currently conceivedfor social work education and practice can realize the claimsadvanced on their behalf. The paper considers questions of evidence,quality, knowledge, dissemination and research use, and offersobservations on the potential of systematic review to provideknowledge for policy makers, practitioners, researchers andacademic tutors.     

高等教育质量评估与地方大学教学改革

随着精英高等教育向大众化高等教育的转变,高等教育质量评估的范式也随之发生了改变,一元的评估标准向多元的评估标准转变。高等教育质量评估的价值取向从对院校整体效益的评估逐渐转向对学生发展和学习经验的评估,体现了为学生服务的终极目的。地方大学的教学改革必须重新进行定位,开展多层面的改革,切实提高教与学的质量。     

Attitudes Toward Gays and Lesbians: A Latent Class Analysis of University Students

ABSTRACT

The profession of social work advocates for civil rights for gay men, lesbians, and bisexual persons. However, a number of social work students and practitioners harbor antigay bias that in prior variable-centered research has been determined to be related to race, relationship status, and age. The purpose of this research was to use latent class analysis (LCA), a person-centered statistical technique, to cluster 394 university student survey responses to the Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gays short-form instrument. The analyses indicated three groups that can be profiled as unbiased, moderately biased, and highly biased. Analysis of variance and multinomial regression verified LCA findings that are consistent with prior research. The importance of selecting appropriate educational approaches to address antigay bias among social work students and practicing social workers is discussed, and recommendations for continued research, including a national random survey of social work students and licensed social workers, are made.     

从实证视角理解个案研究:三阶段考察渠文的方法创新

本文尝试对话渠敬东“迈向社会全体的个案研究”一文：一方面通过实证视角，就渠文进行爬梳与理解，盼激发更多跨界对话；另一方面针对方法应用，自该文提炼策略与建议，盼有助催生具体的研究策略。基于上述目的，本文将“从个案到全体”的历程划分为三个阶段：选择个案、研究个案、推论个案，藉以条理渠文丰富多彩的方法论述。讨论过程中就渠文提示的个案研究途径与传统实证和诠释路径并列对照，帮助说明渠文创新所在。在总的方向上，本文与渠文一致，一方面力图论证个案研究的价值，尝试勾勒出规范、系统的个案方法；另一方面尝试通过个案研究对话，使实证阵营能够理解、欣赏诠释阵营的研究思路与丰厚内涵。     

扩张的中国高等教育：教育质量与社会分层

本文利用2011年首都高校生发展状况调查的数据,分析北京高校学生的分层现状,并讨论了1999年高等教育扩张对大学生入学和就业分层的影响,发现这一轮扩张强化了社会阶层的复制而非再生产。一方面,在其他条件不变的情况下,来自社会优势阶层家庭的学生有更大概率进入具有更好教育质量的精英院校,这说明中国高等教育在这一时期具有排他性的特征;家庭的社会阶层背景对子女教育分层的影响在中学阶段更加明显;家庭背景对专业选择没有显著影响。另一方面,在控制家庭社会经济背景的影响后,教育质量与学生选择市场化部门就业的概率和工作起薪显著正相关。如果高等教育扩张降低了教育质量,就可能削弱高等教育对社会阶层流动的促进作用。     

Good Friendships among Children: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Ethical dimensions of friendship have rarely been explicitly addressed as aspects of friendship quality in studies of children's peer relationships. This study identifies aspects of moral virtue significant for friendship, as a basis for empirically investigating the role of ethical qualities in children's friendship assessments and aspirations. We introduce a eudaimonic conception of friendship quality, identify aspects of moral virtue foundational to such quality, review and contest some grounds on which children have been regarded as not mature enough to have friendships that require virtue, and report a qualitative study of the friendship assessments and aspirations of children aged nine and ten (n = 83). In focus group sessions conducted in ten schools across Great Britain, moral qualities figured prominently in children's assessments of friendship quality. The findings provide evidence of children having friendships exhibiting mutual respect, support, and valuing of each other's good character.     

物流职业教育质量保证体系的建构:香港的经验及借鉴

通过介绍香港物流职业教育的概况,从内部控制和外部评估两个角度介绍了职业教学质量保证主体、评价标准、评价方式的具体做法,总结出对广东物流职业教育质量保证体系建构的借鉴意义和启示:加强宏观制度建设,构建合理的科学评价指标体系,加强院校质量自控的责任心和紧迫感。     

Palliative Healthcare: Cost Reduction and Quality Enhancement Using End-of-Life Survey Methodology

ABSTRACT

American medical institutions throughout the 20th century prescribed high customer satisfaction, but when it came to death, largely ignored it. An accelerated accumulation of esoteric medical information and the application of this knowledge to affect new cures and longer lives instilled an unquestioning reverence for the medical community among the patient population. Diminishing marginal gains in life expectancy, escalating costs related to life sustaining technologies, and a psychographic shift in the dominant consumer base have challenged this traditional reverence. Armed with unprecedented access to medical information, a more knowledgeable and assertive patient population has emerged in the 21st century to institute its own standards of what constitutes quality health care. In terms of end of life care, this has meant recognition that the emotional needs of the dying have been largely underserved by the current American medical model. Patients and their families are no longer willing to accept the traditional medical perspective of death as failure and have numerous international palliative care models that serve as benchmarks of success when it comes to quality of dying. When cure is a possibility, Americans will pursue it at all costs, but when it is not a possibility, they want honest communication and the opportunity to say good-bye to their loved ones. In the context of these emergent needs, life review is offered as a solution. The value proposition targets not only dying patients and their families, but also society as a whole.     

Quality of care: relationship between the perceptions of elderly home care users and their caregivers

The aim was to study the relationship between elderly home care users', and their caregivers', perceptions of the quality of care. The sample consisted of 151 matched elderly home care user-caregiver pairs in a Swedish municipality. The elderly home care users were interviewed and their caregivers filled in questionnaires using an established, theory-based instrument. Results showed that the elderly home care users evaluated most care components more favourably than their caregivers. On ratings of the various care components' subjective importance to the caretaker, the caregivers consistently scored higher than the elderly home care users. Within the subset of elderly home care users who received help at least twice a day, there were greater similarities between caregivers and caretakers. The results are related to comparable research and discussed in terms of caregivers' needs to legitimize their professional identity and actions.     

创新思维：传统教育的缺失与素质教育的核心

传统教育的教育思想、评价学生标准、课程体系、教学方法与现代教育反差甚大 ,而其关键是创新思维的缺失 ,发展创造性教育 ,是人类教育发展和世界各国教育改革的趋势 ,而培养创新思维 ,则应是我国素质教育和教育创新的关键     

实现行政道德责任的道德人格性依据及制度正义原则的建构

作为公共权力的运作者和实施者,公务员应承诺包括行政道德责任在内的许多责任。现实中,行政道德责任的落实并不容易甚至出现缺失状况。为此,应该强化道德人格,坚持制度正义原则。道德人格是实现行政道德责任的依据,制度正义原则是实现行政道德责任的保障,二者相辅相成,共同促进责任的实现。     

Former Spouse Ties and Postdivorce Relationship Quality: Relationship Effort as a Mediator

ABSTRACT

One potential problem area in remarriages is problems with or ties to an ex-spouse. This study focuses on identifying factors central to the relationship dynamics such as relationship satisfaction and stability. Additional emphasis is placed on specific and targeted work in a relationship with the goal of improving it, and its potential mediating effect on any negative relationship between ex-spouse ties and low relationship quality. Using secondary data from the RELATionship Evaluation Survey (RELATE), a sample of 1,546 individuals in postdivorce romantic relationships was examined. The results indicate that unresolved issues and negative interactions with an ex-spouse are negatively associated with relationship quality, but effort to mediate this negative association shows promise. Practice recommendations include exploring how family service agencies and clinicians can better serve couples in postdivorce relationships. Further, a focus on the repartnered family system and a recognition of its difference from other family system types (i.e., first marriage) are important for agencies, clinicians, and researchers interested in providing services to stepfamilies and family life after divorce.     

Good Jobs,Bad Jobs?: Understanding The Quality of Aged Care Jobs,and Why It Matters

Much research on paid care work focuses on this work as care. An equally important issue is its characteristic as paid work. This paper focuses on the characteristics of jobs in Australian aged care facilities, using data from a comprehensive 2003 national survey of direct care workers in Australian aged care facilities. It shows that, on a range of characteristics including pay, aged care jobs compare quite well with other jobs held by Australians who have similar characteristics to aged care workers. Aged care jobs are certainly not unequivocally ‘bad’ jobs. Yet turnover rates amongst these workers are quite high. The paper shows that workers' expectations about remaining in the aged care sector depend largely on their experience of work, particularly their job satisfaction. Job satisfaction, in turn, is affected most by their experience of the work of caring. As in most workplaces, the ability to use their skills without hindrance is important. But care work offers distinctive rewards not captured by notions of professional identity and commitment. The paper concludes by suggesting that a focus on these distinctive rewards will be important in fully understanding paid care work as paid work.     

人文素质教育与职业技能教育相融合的高职人才培养模式的探索

本文以广州城市职业学院为例,探讨以国学教育为切入点,通过校园文化平台建设、课程建设、师资队伍建设、校园文化活动的开展等方式,形成人文素质教育与职业技能教育相融合的人才培养模式,以期有效提升高职院校人才培养的质量。     

Developmental Trajectories of Social Justice Values in Adolescence: Relations with Sympathy and Friendship Quality

This study examined developmental trajectories of social justice values (SJV) in a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1258) at 15 (Time 1), 18 (Time 2), and 21 years of age (Time 3). SJV and friendship quality were measured via self‐reports. Sympathy was assessed via self‐ and mother‐reports. Latent class growth analysis revealed three developmental trajectories of SJV: high‐stable (80 percent), moderate‐decreasing (17 percent), and low‐increasing (3 percent). Adolescents with low levels of self‐ and mother‐reported sympathy were more likely to be members of the low‐increasing than the high‐stable or moderate decreasing trajectory groups. Adolescents who reported low levels of sympathy and friendship quality at 15 years of age were more likely to be members of the moderate‐decreasing trajectory group than the high‐stable trajectory group. Results are discussed with respect to the potential significance of sympathy and friendship quality for understanding the development of SJV during adolescence.     

Peer Contacts of 15-Month-olds in Childcare: Links With Child Temperament, Parent–Child Interaction and Quality of Childcare

Seventy 15‐month‐old children were observed during 90 minutes of free play with their peers in childcare centers. The study aimed to describe individual differences in the children's contacts with peers and to explain the individual differences in relation to: (1) child temperament, (2) the quality of parental behavior toward the child and (3) the quality of the professional childcare environment. Three distinct peer contact factors emerged from our analyses; one reflects children's involvement in peer contacts initiated by peers and two reflect the positive and negative contacts initiated by the target children themselves. Children in groups with more children per caregiver were found to be involved in more contacts initiated by peers. Children with a relatively difficult temperament were less involved in contacts initiated by peers although only in cases of lower quality childcare, as assessed using the infant/toddler environment rating scale. Boys initiated significantly more negative contacts with peers than girls. In addition, more peer‐directed negative initiatives were observed in lower quality childcare.