To prepare for this Discussion, read the case study Social Work Research: Single Subject and criteria for using single-system (subject) designs as evidence of effective practices in this week’s resources.
To prepare for this Discussion, read the case study Social Work Research: Single Subject and criteria for using single-system (subject) designs as evidence of effective practices in this week’s resources.
Discussion: Choosing and Using Single-System Design
Many people receive their first introduction to the scientific method in their early school years. The first experiments which students undertake typically involve plants, chemicals, or small animals in a tightly controlled experimental environment. These experiments enable students to establish a relatively clear cause-and-effect relationship between the outcome of the experiment and the manipulation of the variables.
As soon as a researcher introduces a human element, proving a cause and effect relationship becomes more difficult—as the researcher cannot enact total control of another person even in an experimental environment. Social workers serve clients in highly complex real-world environments. Clients often implement recommended interventions outside of social workers’ direct observation. Yet, evidence-based research calls for social workers to establish cause-and-effect relations between selected interventions and client outcomes as much as possible. To meet this challenge, social workers must understand the study designs available to them and all of the variations of that design that can increase the rigor of the experiment and improve the likelihood of verifying a cause-and-effect relationship.
In this week’s case study, you decide whether the social worker in the case study has appropriately chosen a single-system (subject) design and implemented it in such a way that it can be considered an appropriate example of evidence-based research.
To prepare for this Discussion, read the case study Social Work Research: Single Subject and criteria for using single-system (subject) designs as evidence of effective practices in this week’s resources. Consider whether the study design described in the case study will serve the purpose of evaluating the program’s practice approach (case management with solution-focused and task-centered approaches). Consider whether these approaches are well suited to evaluation by the types of measurement used in the study. Consider to what objective measurement the numerical scales used to measure problem-change and task completion correspond. Consider what new knowledge and evidence for the efficacy of the treatment approaches Chris has generated with her study.
BY DAY 3
Post an evaluation of the proposed study design described in the case study file. Explain whether the outcome of Chris’ study with her client George would lead you to adopt the model of case management with solution-focused and task-centered approaches, and substantiate your choice. Provide recommendations for improvements should Chris and her colleagues wish to submit the study to the evidence-based practice registry. Include a rationale for your recommendations.
BY DAY 5
Respond to at least two colleagues by doing all of the following:
- Offer an analysis of their evaluations and subsequent recommendation. Note both strengths and areas that could be improved.
- Identify areas where your own original recommendations or evaluation was similar to or different from your colleagues’ original evaluation and explain why.
Colleague 1: Katherine
- Post an evaluation of the proposed study design described in the case study file.
The proposed study design described in the case study is using a multiple-baseline, single-subject design. Each case manager will choose a client that is new to their caseload to participate, they will explain the study to the client and then obtain an informed consent signed by the client. The case worker then identifies three areas that require assistance within the client’s life. The case manager and client will discuss each step and rate it on a 10-point scale. Any new client problems were addressed during that time and rated as well. Each week the case manager and client will meet and re-rate the three areas of care. At the end of three months all the data was gathered and placed into a chart.
- Explain whether the outcome of Chris’ study with her client George would lead you to adopt the model of case management with solution-focused and task-centered approaches and substantiate your choice.
The outcomes of Chris’ study were good, and it was easy to understand when and where the client was making progress but one aspect that I wasn’t impressed with was that even though you could see the growth or lack thereof, you didn’t know to what extent or where to pick up from if you wanted to continue just from reading the charts. Overall, I believe the model of case management and solution-focused and task-centered approaches is a good choice for this client population. “The most likely situation that would be appropriate for this kind of design, for most social workers, would be the use of a relatively standardized intervention such as solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) to sequentially work with a client on several problem areas” (Mattaini, p 255). Therefore, in this case and one’s similar to it I would adopt this model of case management with solution-focused and task-centered approaches.
- Provide recommendations for improvements should Chris and her colleagues wish to submit the study to the evidence-based practice registry. Include a rationale for your recommendations.
The first improvement I would recommend is that more data is collected over a longer period of time. There is not a true representation of what this study can show based on a few clients over a 6–8-week span. Also, there is no data that shows whether it is effective in the long-term scheme of things either. Also, establishing evidence-based practices would be a good recommendation as well. “A practice may be considered evidence based when a minimum of five single-subject studies that meet minimally acceptable methodological criteria and document experimental control have been published in peer-reviewed journals, (b) the studies are conducted by at least three different researchers across at least three different geographic locations, and (c) the five or more studies include a total of at least 20 participants” (Mattaini, p 267).
References
Mattaini, M. A. (2010). Single-system studies. In B. Thyer (Ed.), The handbook of social work research
methods (2nd ed., pp. 241-273). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (PDF). https://content.waldenu.edu/content/dam/laureate/l…
Colleague 2: Brandon
RE: Discussion – Week 3
Dr. Casiano and Class,
In the case study, Chris studied and tracked the data of the client (Plummer et al., 2014). The client had multiple goals in the treatment plan (Plummer et al., 2014). Chris used a simultaneous interventions design (Mattaini, 2010). It appears that the worker also used goal attainment scale (GAS) (Dudley, 2020). The model that Chris used was a great way to track data. However, the chart was hard to read without explanation.
In this case, George, is a geriatric patient the has slight dementia (Dudley, 2020). This would lead one to take a task-centered approach when working with this particular client. Solution focused approach works with the problem in reverse (Dahl et al., 2000). This gives the client help by teaching the client to understand once the problem is solved, their lives would be different (Dahl et al., 2000).
Should Chris and colleagues wish to submit the study to the evidence-base practice registry the EBP should be conducted more than once and on more than one client. The rationale for this is there is not enough evidence from one subject to prove that the intervention will work again. Chris should continue to collect data and compare.
Thank you,
Brandon Oates
References
Dahl, R., Bathel, D., & Carreon, C. (2000). The use of solution-focused therapy with an elderly population: [1]. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 19(4), 45-55.
Dudley, J. R. (2020). Is the intervention effective? Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.) Oxford University Press. (pp. 236-241).
Mattaini, M. A. (2010). Single-system studies. In B. Thyer (Ed.), The handbook of social work research methods (2nd ed., pp. 241–273). Sage.
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014b). Social work case studies: Concentration year. Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
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