Social Work Students and the Research Process: Exploring the Thinking, Feeling, and Doing of Research

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to explore how social work students enrolled in a research course report their thoughts, feelings, and satisfaction with the research process. A pretest and posttest, self-report measures, the State-Trait Anxiety Scale (Y1), and subscales of the Research Process Survey were used to track the thoughts. feelings, and actions of 111 social work research students during a fifteen-week semester. Results of paired sample t-tests revealed that although social work students experienced a decrease in negative thoughts and feelings (e.g., anxiety) about the research process, they were not satisfied with it. These findings have important implications for social work education. Helping students increase not only their positive thoughts and feelings about research but also their satisfaction level can assist with the long-term educational goal to educate social work professionals who can provide high-quality services, evaluate practice, and improve practice, policy, and social servi...