Blog 1A:  As you can guess from the title, I have no experience with what I’m about to share with you today, but I am most certainly willing to learn and to travel where needed to become proficient.  When I think about becoming a subject of someone’s social work research, it feels like a scary and evasive process.  Just imagine being like a grapefruit or an orange.  Someone is peeling you back to open you up and reveal one’s inner self, thoughts and feelings to another person.  There may be parts of myself that I may not be willing to share with the world.  The good times; the bad and sad ones as well.  It feels like someone can shine a microscope on my life and pick it apart and tell me how I am developing as a person.

My personal feelings aside, professionally, I know that there are some benefits to social workers analyzing and interpreting data to help bring about social or policy changes.  Research studies can show a need for new social programs to service the needs of a family or community or can show that a program needs to be terminated or discontinued.  “Research questions can bring about answers that significantly have potential importance for social welfare or social work practice” (Rubin & Babbie, 2017, pg. 121).  How do we know if a program or policy is working unless someone is setting actual goals for success with the clients that we hope to make a difference in their lives.  I personally would like to be one of those in the room helping to set policies and procedures for good social work practices.  Researching topics that provides us with important insights in determining why individuals do what they do and how to best provide interventions and come up with solutions.

Social work research involves gathering information from direct observations; self-reporting and examining available records.  It’s time consuming and can be costly as well.  When I began to do this work, I don’t want to have to re-invent new tools to measure any failures or successes in my research studies.  Whether my social work research will use a quantitative (i.e., to define something in advance and in precise observable terms) or qualitative (i.e, theoretical framework that does the opposite of quantitative) approach or a combo of both approaches, I would like to develop something meaningful and useful to myself and my peers.

I am definitely motivated to engage and learn about Social Work Research for this course and will bring my personal fears and professionalism together to tackle the challenges and overcome any obstacles.  I will be present and participate in all classroom activities.  I will learn from my peers in group/team discussions.  I will ask questions when I don’t understand or need clarity on new social work topics.  I know becoming a good social worker may mean at times coming out of my comfort zone.  Just the same as I will be asking this of others, I can most wholeheartedly move in that same direction myself.  Here I am, opening this Social Work doorway and waiting to see I can accomplish for myself and for others I hope to serve.