Research: a firmer place in social work education? JSWEC July 2009 Jo Moriarty Jill Manthorpe Martin Stevens Shereen Hussein.
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Research: a firmer place in social work education?JSWEC July 2009
Jo MoriartyJill ManthorpeMartin Stevens
Shereen Hussein
Outline
Context Undertaken as part of wider project Why this has been a topic of concern
Methods Email/postal survey Telephone interviews with sub sample
Findings Signs of progress and of challenges
Discussion Taking things forward
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UK social sciences workforce
Social work academic workforce is: Comparatively small (<600) Comparatively mature (47 per
cent aged 50+) Context of:
Divergence between academic salaries and those as senior manager outside higher education
Increase in student numbers
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Relationship between research and social work 2000 Karen Lyons ‘The place of research in social
work education’ British Journal of Social Work, 30 (4): 433-447 In 1994 only a minority of social work qualifying
programmes taught research methods Less than a fifth staff held a doctorate About two thirds involved in some research Barriers included time and lack of research culture
in some departments
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Methods Sampling frame of around 800 names across UK
Universities and colleges offering social work qualifying programmes
Either through departmental web pages or (rarely) a list of social work staff in department
Postal or email questionnaire Email reminder
252 responses (about a third) Target was 200 Slightly more responses from people working in older
universities but otherwise responders and non responders seemed similar
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Not my usual location for data analysis!
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Gender
60 per cent of respondents were women High proportion for
social science subject (Mills et al, 2006)
However lower than in profession as whole Contrasts with student
profile
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Ethnicity
81 per cent described themselves as White British
Seven Asian respondents
Seven Black Caribbean respondents
Differs from profile in wider profession and among students
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More Helen Mirren than Lily Allen…
Women’s mean age was 48 (Men’s mean age was 52)
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Pathways to the ivory tower…
85 per cent had a social work qualification
67 per cent registered as social worker with a UK Care Council
Average age at which started work in academic sector was 37
45 per cent held doctorate
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Making the transition
“The main message I want to get across is the difficulty with the transition from practice to research. People new to academia need the opportunity to build on their CVs. They do not necessarily get that opportunity if [they are] shoved straight into teaching. It can be very daunting when coming into the academic world after being a rigidly controlled [local authority] environment.”
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The good news….
82 per cent had undertaken some kind of research in last two years
Difference between proportions undertaking research in ‘old’ and ‘new’ universities not statistically significant
39 per cent had had access to some research training in last two years
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But….
More time spent on teaching and administration than research More than a fifth spent
10 per cent or less of their time on research
Less than a tenth spent 50 per cent or more
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Finding time with other commitments “[Programme
directors] in social work always have a high admin load. It’s all the outside links that need to be made - contacts with the GSCC.”
“The problem is we have this workload balancing thing. You have to have so many hours teaching and my teaching was spread over each semester…[What made it more difficult was the fact that] it’s all new, so I am writing my teaching materials rather than [being] at the stage of updating them…”
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“T’ain’t what you know but the way that you do it” Logistic regression
looking at probability of receiving funding from a Research Council, government department, or national charity showed….
Holds PhDYears in academic
sectorWorks in pre 1992
universitySpends more than 40
per cent of time on research
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Access to research training
Almost half had had training in qualitative data analysis
Just over a tenth had training in quantitative data analysis
Other examples included Developing grant applications Writing skills Using bibliographic software
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Use of networks
Network Percentage reporting use of
None 38
British Association of Social Workers (BASW) 28
British Sociological Association (BSA) 12
Social Policy Association (SPA) 12
Social Services Research Group (SSRG) 11
National Children's Bureau Research Network 10British Association for the Study, Prevention and Care of Child Abuse and Neglect 10
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Other types of support
Mentoring schemes Access to research leave Writing groups
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Support in workplace
Similar between different types of university
Different by type of funding Better among those
in posts not funded by Higher Education Funding Councils or DELNI
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What people wanted most often
Better recognition of timing constraints on social work
More training Help finding out about different sources of
funding More support with applications from within
university
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Other suggestions
Opportunities to work across disciplines Could help with breadth of research
methodologies adopted Surprisingly little educational research
Partnerships across different universities Opportunities for learning from each other
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Research/teaching dividing line?
“I am [studying] at a prestigious university, and they don’t [bother] about students [but]…I am being taught by some of the best academics…At [the HEI where I teach we are] really focused on students and valuing diversity. If you come here as a student, this is about getting you through the course, which really fits my values. Though for me, I really want to be in an academic environment. It is really swings and roundabouts: neither is good or bad, just a different focus.”
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Discussion
Study suggests that research now has a higher profile in social work
New cadre of professionals with practice and research backgrounds Opportunities for professional doctorates Researcher Development Initiative
Limitations in size and scope of research Small scale projects often being completed
without any internal/external funding
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Thanks to…
ESRC for funding this Joan Orme for co-ordinating the bid and the
combined report 252 of you for completing a questionnaire
ESPECIALLY the 30 people who completed an interview and a questionnaire
Lizzy, Sean and Carla for help with stuffing envelopes and with data entry (the next generation?)
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