SOCW 698 Research Rotating Topics Elective (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

Topics not included in the regular curriculum, but within the Research sequence. Specific title and description information will be posted in the registration portal for the term offered.

Summer 1 - SSW, Summer 2 - SSW, Variable

SOCW 776 Clinical Social Work Practice Evaluation (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

Practice evaluation is a core component of social work practice as stated in the NASW Code of Ethics (section 5.02) and in the CSWE EPAS accreditation standards (Competency 9). It is an ethical imperative to evaluate the effectiveness of one’s practice, and to alter practices that are ineffective, to best serve clients. This course will examine two widely used approaches to clinical social work practice evaluation: case studies and single case designs. Problem definitions, research designs, data collection methods including standardized and self-anchored measures, and data analysis procedures will be explored. The merits and limitations of each practice evaluation method will be critically examined and ethical issues investigated. How evaluative procedures, measures and approaches can support diverse clients are examined. Exemplar studies will be used to consider how practice evaluation can simultaneously serve client, administrative and knowledge development purposes.

Summer 1 - SSW, Summer 2 - SSW, Variable

SOCW 777 Introduction to Program Evaluation (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

Evaluation is a valuable skill for social work practice. At the micro-level, the evaluation of individual clinical practice is a vital tool for all clinicians. At the macro-level, the ability to understand, contribute to, and implement evaluations of social sector programs is a hallmark of social work leaders. This course is designed to introduce students to the theory, methods, and practice of program evaluation. There will be an explicit focus on purpose, context, and intended use: What are the most pressing questions about a given program? What do we understand about the underlying mechanisms of an intervention? Whose voices will be heard and highlighted in an evaluation? How are the findings to be used? The course structure will facilitate the systematic examination and exploration of these questions in a social work context, with the goal of improving quality of care at the level of the individual, program, and organization.

Summer 1 - SSW, Summer 2 - SSW, Variable

SOCW 778 The Studio: Worlding the Otherwise (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

This module takes seriously the challenge of engaging research to change reality, be that through activism, artistic practice or speculation. Research then becomes an effort to world the otherwise. Students are invited to introduce their own artistic practice, work experience, creative ideas and reflections and are invited to further develop the knowledge and skills they already possess as critical research practice and social intervention. The Studio is a non-hierarchical space where boundaries break down - between disciplines, teacher and student, inside and outside of the university. Over 5 weeks, students are introduced to practice research, a novel research paradigm that sits alongside and cuts through quantitative and qualitative approaches. Practice research is able to contest the politics of knowledge production of traditional social research and opens up a minoritarian space that centres decolonial, queer and feminist knowledge production. As such, practice research is a transdisciplinary space that values artistic, activist and speculative engagement with social problems and engages research as intervention towards more liveable worlds. In workshop style sessions, small groups explore a social problem of their own choosing, germane to clinical social work, and we will together explore relevant practices, what knowledge these practices gather and produce, and which modes of (re)presentation are appropriate. Each group will conclude the module with an intervention/object of their own design - a selection of photographs, film/video, poem, ezine, spoken word, performance... The Studio is envisioned as a space for building collectivity where art, activism and theory create new realities.

Summer 1 - SSW, Summer 2 - SSW, Variable

SOCW 780 Research Practicum (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

The Research Practicum is a two credit (or a single course equivalent) specialization level research elective option intended to allow learning opportunities for students addressing CSWE EPAS and SSW objectives. Practicum learning centers on participation in an ongoing research project developed and led by a Smith College SSW resident faculty member. The faculty member identifies the research question and methods as well as identifying multiple student roles in the project. The practicum is a faculty designed and mentored project; it is not an independent project designed by the student. The faculty member is responsible for completing and documenting appropriate IRB approval where required for research involving human subjects or for use of secondary data involving human subjects. The research practicum requires at least 64 hours of work for credit, with the different tasks and their weighting for grading determined by the faculty advisor and specified in the written research practicum application.

Winter

SOCW 798 Research Rotating Topics Elective (2 Quarter Hours)

Coordinating Sequence: Research

Fulfills: Research Sequence Elective

Topics not included in the regular curriculum, but within the research sequence. Specific title and description information will be posted in the registration portal for the term offered.

Summer 1 - SSW, Summer 2 - SSW, Variable