Journal of Social Service Research

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Importance of Research in Social Work Practice: A

Pilot Study From Turkey

Ercüment Erbay

To cite this article: Ercüment Erbay (2016): Importance of Research in Social

Work Practice: A Pilot Study From Turkey, Journal of Social Service Research, DOI:
10.1080/01488376.2016.1246401

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JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SERVICE RESEARCH
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2016.1246401

Importance of Research in Social Work Practice: A Pilot Study From Turkey

€ment Erbay
Ercu
Department of Social Work, Hacettepe University, Beytepe-Ankara, Turkey

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
It is highly important that social work practice be guided by scientific research and the resultant Social work practice; social
practices introduced to the literature. Social work research in Turkey is carried out by social work work research; social
academics and practitioners. This dual position they occupy has not been thoroughly investigated workers; evidence-based
in recent years; therefore, the aim of this research was to scrutinize the relationship social workers practice
take when completing research in Turkey. Within the scope of this research, data were collected by
conducting an online survey of 365 social workers. Results of the study show that 45.8% of the
social workers have conducted research before. Nonetheless, 93.7% of the social work practitioners
do feel the need to carry out scientific research in order to shape their professional practices.
Considering these results, future research should concentrate on social work practitioners’ problems
taking into account their dual position as both the producer and consumer of the research.

Introduction to have more research based application in social work

Research methodology is one of the rare common points
of focus across various branches of science. Science
advances via studying previously conducted research in
addition to designing and carrying out new research,
while the knowledge produced is used for the good of
human beings. Social work research deals with problems
experienced by social workers and communities, in terms
of the functions of social work. When the historical devel-
opment of social work is examined, it can easily be seen
that it has always endeavored to produce and to be based
on scientific knowledge. In this sense, the use of scientific
knowledge produced by social work and other disciplines
sustained and consolidated social work as a discipline
and as a profession (Duyan, Ozg€ € ur Sayar, & Ozbulut,
€ merely on issues raised theoretically. By from practice to
2008).
Reid (2001) defined the functions of social work
research as “forming scientific basis for application, pro-
viding information for application and obtaining specific
information for taking professional decisions” (p. 474).
Research also provides social workers with the opportu-
nity to better understand, defend, and help their clients
€ u, 1999). Although there are various opinions
(Unl€
regarding the matter in England, it is agreed that the pri-
mary aim of researchers is to enhance social work prac-
tice (Powell, 2002). Having said that, “it is still desirable
profession. Research-led, research-based and research-
informed practices, have a key role in ensuring the suc-
cess of social work applications” (Phillips, MacGiollaRi,
& Callaghan, 2012, p. 785).
Soydan (2012), on the other hand, approached the
issue of social work research in terms of theory and
practice:
In social work as a research tradition, we can see two main-
stream tendencies in the history of ideas. My terms for these
are from theory to practice and from practice to theory. By
from theory to practice, I mean that research results and
theoretical knowledge are intended as a foundation for
social practice, regardless of whether the research is based
on current professional and sociopolitical priorities or
theory, I mean that social practice conducted by individuals
may generate research findings that may be distilled to gen-
eralized knowledge. (p. 472)
Social Work Research in Turkey
To start with, it would be useful to give a brief overview
concerning research training in social work education in
Turkey. Social work education in Turkey started in 1961.
Hacettepe University School of Social Work was the only
institution providing social work education until 2002,

CONTACT Erc€
ument Erbay ercumenterbay@gmail.com €
Hacettepe Universitesi, _I_IBF Sosyal Hizmet B€ol€um€u Beytepe Ankara, 06800, Turkey.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 E. ERBAY
after which other departments of social work began to be
established. Currently, 63 universities are providing social
work education in Turkey. Hacettepe University Social
Work bachelor program, which sets an example for all
other social work departments in Turkey, includes two
Social Work Research courses with a total value of five
credits. The bachelor program also contains an Applied
Research course covering a full academic year. In this
course, students are given the opportunity to transfer
their theoretical knowledge gained in Social Work
Research courses into practice. Besides the research-
related courses in the bachelor program, the master’s pro-
gram has a Qualitative And Quantitative Research course
with a value of seven ECTS credits while the PhD pro-
gram includes courses such as Quantitative Research
Design, Advanced Research Techniques in Social Work,
and Qualitative Research Design, each having a value of
eight ECTS credits (www.sh.hacettepe.edu.tr).
The significance of social work and the increasing
need for social workers seem to be indisputable facts
given the urgency of solving the social problems in
Turkey with its population of 78,741,053 (Turkish Sta-
tistical Institute, 2015) and the need to enhance the
human resources in this considerable population as
well as the existing shortage of scientific research and
relevant efforts on social work–related fields. Despite
the increasing number of published books and articles
in the field of social work, the need for further
research-based original studies and their publication
persists. Social work academics are naturally expected
to produce original research materials directly related
to the discipline and the field of social work. The same
is expected of the social workers who actively work in
the field. However, the latter group requires a substan-
tial amount of encouragement in order to realize this
expectation (Workshop on Needs and Problems in
Social Work Education in Turkey, 2009).
Between the years 2002 and 2016, a total of 241
articles were published in Society and Social Work, the
only peer-reviewed social work journal in Turkey, and
only 20 of them were written by social workers who
had been actively working in the field. This disquieting
gap has been considered to necessitate an examination
of the social workers’ views on research in Turkey.
Therefore, the relationship social workers in Turkey
establish with research was addressed more thor-
oughly in this study than it has been addressed in pre-
vious studies.
Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work
Evidence-based practice (EBP) refers to the structur-
ing of social work practice on the basis of evidence.
Predicating practice upon evidence is crucial with
regard to the effectiveness of professional decisions.
One of the most important advantages of evidence-
based practice is that it contributes to bridging the gap
between the practice and the field.
EBP first emerged in the discipline of medicine in the
1990s, and even though it started to claim its place in
social work around the same time, the effects of this
approach on social work practice are not yet fully discern-
able. However, the Ethics Code created by the American
National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2008)
states that research is among the professional responsibil-
ities of a social worker and highlights that “social workers
should monitor and evaluate the implementation of poli-
cies and programs, question the validity of new informa-
tion and use research findings and results in their
professional practice.”
“EBP is a trend idea in social work. Whether it devel-
ops into a more enduring aspect of social work will only
become clear with the passage of time. Despite some of
the reservations about the use of evidence in this and
other contexts, it is important to highlight the benefits of
building awareness of evidence into practice” (Lawler &
Bilson, 2004, p. 63). As Drisko and Grady (2012) empha-
sized, EBP is an integrative decision-making process
aimed at improving client outcomes and effectiveness in
social work practice.
Despite the recent increase in the use of research in
numerous areas of social work, it is still criticized that
de facto decision making is rarely informed by sound
research evidence. Discourse regarding the research-
to-practice gap in social work has tended to concen-
trate on the feasibility of evidence-based practice for
the profession but has hardly drawn from the broader
knowledge-utilization literature (Heinsch, Gray, &
Sharland, 2016).
EBP can be defined as the process in which the practi-
tioner makes use of the best available research evidence
to guarantee the best possible decisions, actions, and serv-
ices. Practitioners are encouraged to abide by an evidence
hierarchy that places at the top gold standard systematic
reviews (Gray, Sharland, Heinsch, & Schubert, 2015).
For clients to be offered the most ethical, evidence-based
interventions, it is crucial to integrate research and

practice in all helping professions (Gambrill, 2015).
Transferring research findings into practice should be an
integral aspect of EBP, and the main actor in this transfer
is none other than the social work practitioner (Davis,
Grady, Cuddeback, & Scheyett, 2011).
Social workers shape professional intervention in
an evidence-based manner; continuously and meticu-
lously evaluate their professional practice; and partici-
pate in activities of exploration, testing, and reporting
in order to serve their clients better and share the
results of practice evaluation. Social workers’ utiliza-
tion of research evidence is a complex process that is
influenced by the characteristics of individuals, organ-
izations, and research (Lee, 2015). Social workers are
able to support other social workers in a shift to a
practice research culture that is important in enabling
social work to join an evidence-based and evidence-
informed practice context within health (Joubert &
Epstein, 2013).
According to Gilgun (2005, p. 52), the four corner-
stones of EBP in social work are as follows:
1. Research and theory
2. Practice knowledge (what we have learned from
clients, professional values)
3. The practitioner’s personal assumptions, values,
worldview
4. What clients bring into the practice conditions
Regehr, Stern, and Shlonsky (2007) state that the
process of rendering EBP functional works as follows:
1. Defining priorities in the field and following
those priorities
2. Evaluating the best available information and
coming up with a cluster of knowledge with a
critical view
3. Forming partnerships in order to provide more
evidence-strengthening practice
4. Ensuring the dissemination of research findings
for the development of effective programs
(information flow)
5. Training of social workers and social work
students
Aims of the Study
The main aim of this research was to scrutinize the
relationship social workers establish with research in
Turkey. The particular aims determined in accordance
with this main aim are as follows:
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SERVICE RESEARCH 3
1. Determine the correlation between social work-
ers’ status of conducting research and reading
research.
2. Determine the social workers’ status of compe-
tence for conducting and reading research.
3. Determine the relationship between social
workers’ having undergraduate and graduate
education and their status of conducting or
reading research.
4. Reveal the social workers’ needs of carrying out
and reading scientific research in guiding their
professional practices.
5. Find out whether social workers need to receive
training in the process of conducting and read-
ing research.
Methodology
Sample
The universe of the study included all the social work-
ers who worked in the social work institutions in Tur-
key, and the number of social workers in Turkey at
the time of the study was 5,108. This group of social
workers all carry out their academic and professional
discussions in an e-mail group. Social work students
generally become members of this group when they
graduate. Within the scope of this research, the most
efficient way of reaching the social workers was this e-
mail group. After an e-mail recruitment letter was
sent out, 365 social workers agreed to participate.
Instrument
Preliminary to the research, literature was reviewed in
order to find publications that could help with the
questions to be asked to social workers with regard to
conducting research and reading research, with the
aim of learning about their evaluations. Opinions of
Turkish academics who work on social work research
were also taken. The survey was first conducted in a
pilot study with the participation of 10 social workers
in Ankara (capital of Turkey). The survey was
observed to be completed in about 25 minutes during
the pilot study. The social workers who participated in
these preliminary tests indicated that the number of
questions was not too high, hence the survey was filled
out with ease. Such feedback in addition to the
researcher’s observations ensured that the survey
questions were functional.
4 E. ERBAY
As a result, a 28-question survey was prepared in
accordance with the literature review and the research
subject.
Within this framework, the participants were asked
closed-end questions regarding their age, sex, level of
education, years of professional social work experi-
ence, whether they had a graduate education or not,
and whether they were competent enough to conduct
and read research.
Procedure
Subsequent to the pilot study, the survey went online and
was shared in a social workers’ mail group via Google
Documents. The survey stayed online in the mail group
for 3 months between May and July 2014 while each
month a reminder was sent to the group members. The
informed consent required from the participants was
taken by an informative text written in the introduction
of the survey. The fact that the online survey was filled
out by social workers who volunteered constituted their
consent to participate. Consequently, 365 social workers
participated in the survey.
The data obtained were analyzed by the Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21.0, and the find-
ings were evaluated at a 95% confidence interval. The
relationship between the variables was put to the chi-
square test of independence. As the test for independence
generated a p value less than .05, it was concluded that
there was an association between the variables.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Of the respondents, 57.0% were female and 43.0%
were male. The mean age of the respondents was
31.97; the minimum age was 21, and maximum age
was 62. In addition, social workers who were in the
sample group had an average of 14.80 years of profes-
sional experience. Minimum years of experience was 1
year; maximum years of experience was 47 years. Of
the participants, 17.3% had a graduate degree; thus,
the remaining 82.7% did not have a master’s degree.
Only 1.9% of the participants were social workers with
a doctorate degree.
The biggest group of social workers in the sample
group (35.1%) was working at the Ministry of Health.
It was followed by the social workers working at the
Ministry of Family and Social Policy (33%), the
Ministry of Justice (7.1%), private organizations
(5.8%), municipalities (4.5%), and the Provincial
Directorate of Disaster and Emergency Management
(4%). The remaining 10.5% were working in nongov-
ernmental organizations, universities, police depart-
ments, and dormitories.
Professional Necessity of Research
Whether it is necessary for social workers to carry out
scientific research in order to shape their professional
practice is one of the most significant questions of this
study. Of the social workers who participated in the
study, 93.7% indicated that in fact they did feel such a
necessity; 98.6% of the participants declared that they
considered research a part of the social work practice.
On the other hand, the motivations of those who did
not feel the necessity to carry out research are illus-
trated by the following phrases: “Laws and regulations
are very clear, so I do not need research” and “we do
not even have the time to feel such a need.”
Research Competency
The controversy of research competency concerns the
capabilities of professionals. In a discussion about
“research-minded practitioners,” McBeath and Austin
(2015, p. 446) suggested that their analysis focuses on
these individuals who have “a capacity to critically
reflect on practice to develop researchable questions, a
capacity to be informed by knowledge and research
related to social work values, and a capacity to under-
stand research designs and related methodologies in
order to theorize about practice” (Austin, Dal Santo,
& Lee, 2012, p. 176) The social workers were asked
whether they had the competency to completely carry
out research, and 56.7% stated that they did consider
themselves competent. Those who considered them-
selves incompetent were prompted to state the reasons
underlying their response. According to the answers
received from the sample group, it was discovered that
some issues such as analyzing the data, constructing a
theoretical framework, and publishing the research
were considered challenging.
The social workers in the sample group were asked
whether they considered their bachelor’s education
sufficient for completing a research project, and 57.3%
of them believed that their bachelor’s education
proved unsatisfactory.

Table 1. The relationship between competency and conducting research.
Competency in conducting research
Yes
Social work research N %
Conducting research Yes 115 68.9
No 52 31.1

p < .05.
The participants were asked whether they knew
how to use SPSS, which can be a helpful and func-
tional software in analyzing quantitative data in social
work research, and it was found out that 51.5% of the
participants did not know how to use the software
(Statistic Package of Social Sciences).
One of the most important questions of this research
was whether social workers felt competent enough to
conduct research. The findings presented in Table 1
show that 68.9% of the social workers considered them-
selves competent in conducting research and contributed
to production of knowledge while 59.7% of the social
workers stated that competency in conducting research
required research-based knowledge. These findings dem-
onstrate that there is a significant relationship between
competency in terms of conducting research and produc-
ing and consuming knowledge.
Being a Knowledge Producer
“Knowledge production/utilization (KPU) discourse is
concerned with the uptake, adoption, implementation
and use of research knowledge, as change outcomes in
the practice and policy worlds” (Gray, Sharland,
Heinsch, & Schubert, 2014, p. 1957). Although there
are social workers who appreciate the benefits of
research evidence in the process of decision making,
they nevertheless encounter numerous barriers in
employing scientific research in their daily practice.
Barriers identified in previous studies include practi-
tioners’ and organizational characteristics, such as
attitude toward research, lack of time to read research,
knowledge about research, workload pressure, lack of
organizational support, and organizational structure
(Wiechelt & Ting, 2012; Wike et al., 2014).
Social worker as a producer of knowledge refers to a
professional who conducts research with the aim of
eliminating the shortcomings in the current scientific
knowledge and practice within the fields pertaining to
€ u, 1999).
social work (Unl€
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SERVICE RESEARCH 5
No
N % X2 /p value

92 46.5 X2 D 18.512 p D .00
106 53.5
Reid (1987) stated that a considerable part of social
work research was carried out under the following topics:
1. Behaviors and problems of client and nonclient
individuals and groups, etc.
2. Qualifications of services, access to services, and
attained goals after providing these services.
3. Training of social workers, social work profes-
sion, and interdisciplinary topics.
4. Organizations, institutions, communities, and
social policy–related studies.
In this study, social workers were asked whether
they had ever conducted research with the aim of
using it in professional practice, and 54.2% responded
negatively. Of those participants who declared to have
conducted research before, 121 participants (78.6%)
had conducted one or two research studies, 23
(14.9%) have conducted three or four research studies,
and 10 (6.5%) had conducted five or more research
studies. The same group of participants were asked
whether they got their research published, and 67.5%
of the responses were positive.
In light of these findings, the participants were
asked whether these research studies contributed to
their professional practices, and 90.2% pointed out
that these research studies really guided them in their
practices.
The relationship between the need for conducting
research and being a consumer of knowledge is
another finding in the research (see Table 2). It was
found out that 95.8% of the participants who felt the
need to conduct research were also consumers of
research-based knowledge. This means that there is a
meaningful relationship between social workers’ need
to conduct research and being consumers of scientific
knowledge.
Being a Consumer of Knowledge
The knowledge-consumer’s role is concerned with
reflecting the new knowledge produced via social
6 E. ERBAY

Table 2. The relationship between the need for conducting research and being a consumer of knowledge.
The need to conduct research

Yes No

Social work research N % N % X2 /p value


Being a consumer of knowledge Yes 276 95.8 66 85.7 X2 D 8.892 p D .003
No 12 4.2 11 14.3

p < .05.

work research in the process of social work practice
€ u, 1999, p. 122).
and utilizing new research efforts (Unl€
Even if the opportunities of conducting research are
scarce for various reasons, social workers are expected
to consume research materials related to their field of
study; in other words, they are expected to be knowl-
edge consumers. According to the data obtained from
the sample, 78.9% of the social workers read research
materials. They were asked whether the research
materials they consumed contributed to their profes-
sional practice, and 97.2% of the participants stated
that the materials contributed to their practice.
The relationships between participants having a
graduate degree and feeling competent enough to
conduct research, conducting research before, and
reading research articles produced in this area are
shown in Table 3. There is a statistically significant
relationship (X2 D 6.717; p < .05) between having
a graduate degree and feeling competent in con-
ducting scientific research whereas the number of
those with graduate degrees who consider them-
selves competent in terms of conducting scientific
research all the way through is higher than those
with a graduate degree but who do not feel compe-
tent in conducting scientific research. On the other
statistically significant relationship (X2 D 6.507; p
< .05), between having a graduate degree and hav-
ing conducted research, the number of participants
who had conducted research is higher among those
with a graduate degree than among those without.
Finally, the relation between having a graduate
degree and reading the research conducted in the
field of social work is also statistically significant
(X2 D 8.696; p < .05); the number of participants
who read the research conducted in the field of
social work is higher among those with a graduate
degree than among those without.
Continuity of Research Training
Research training should be beyond the knowledge
that social work students gain during the undergradu-
ate education and instead become a continuous part
of the professional life. In this way, social workers can
become more knowledgeable and skilled in conduct-
ing, consuming, and understanding research.
Participants were asked whether they would like
to have research methodology training and whether
this would motivate them to conduct research. Of
the respondents, 91.5% indicated that they were

Table 3. The relationship between having a graduate degree and the variables.
Have you completed a graduate degree? Test of association

Yes No X2 p

Do you feel competent in terms of conducting research all the Yes n 45 162 6.717 .010
way from beginning to end? % 21.7 78.3
No n 18 140
% 11.4 88.6 
Have you ever conducted research (except that conducted in Yes n 38 129 6.507 .011
the course of undergraduate, graduate, and PhD programs)? % 22.8 77.2
No n 25 173
% 12.6 87.4 
Do you read the research conducted in the field of social work? Yes n 58 230 6.995 .008
% 20.1 79.9
No n 5 72
% 6.5 93.5

p < .05.
 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SERVICE RESEARCH 7

willing to undergo such training. When they were This feeling of discomfort increases the reluc-
asked whether such training would motivate them tance of social workers to conduct research. More-
to conduct research, 92.6% of the answers were over, it consolidates the idea that research does not
positive. connect with the real world of social work. In
response to the question of why social workers did
not use research to a greater extent, some research-
Conclusion ers offered the following explanations (Krysik &
Finn, 2010, p. 11):
When the relevant literature in Turkish is reviewed,
 Social workers were not appreciative of the work
two articles stand out. One of them is Unl€ € u’s (1999)
that researchers do.
article titled “Researcher Social Worker,” and the
 Social agencies were barely tolerant hosts of
other one is Karataş, Demir€ _ gasıoglu’s
oz, and Iça
research.
(2002) study, which did not focus on social work
 Agency administrators were interested only in
research but simply addressed the issue while dwelling
research that supports the status quo.
on social work education.
On the other hand, 78.9% of the social workers
Some of the social workers who participated in this
reported reading research materials (knowledge con-
research reported not having conducted research
sumer role).
before, and they referred to various reasons which led
Taking into consideration the body of data
to this result. If these reasons were to be recapitulated
explained in the preceding, the question of what
in generalized categories, workload and heavy bureau-
should be done to encourage social workers to become
cracy would be the primary reasons for not having
knowledge producers and consumers comes to mind.
conducted any research. They would be followed by
Possible suggestions are as follows:
limitations caused by the workplace, the lack of need
 Social work students should be given a quality
for research, the lack of knowledge and skills required
research training, which can inspire and moti-
for carrying out research, the lack of sufficient aware-
vate students to conduct research when they start
ness for conducting research, and laziness.
working as social workers.
The primary results of the study show that 45.8% of
 Social workers’ awareness regarding the necessity
the social workers have conducted research before. On
of conducting research should be raised.
the other hand, 93.7% of the practitioners feel the
 Social workers should be encouraged to publish
need to carry out scientific research in order to shape
their research.
their professional practices.
 Social workers should be provided with research
As mentioned in the preceding, the primary reason for
training and opportunities to update their
not having conducted research is found to be having too
research knowledge within the frame of continu-
heavy a workload. According to Stevens, Liabo, Frost,
ing training.
and Roberts (2005, p. 67), the practical obstacles that hin-
 The research data indicate that social workers
der conducting research are lack of time, lack of research
consider workload the primary reason for not
skills (the ability to search for and critically appraise evi-
conducting research. Therefore, social work
dence), and lack of resources (e.g., access to the Internet,
administrators are required to ease the workload
database, and library services). In addition, they claim
and create adequate time for conducting
that research and practitioners’ needs are not compatible
research.
with each other. Gibbs (2001, p. 696), who examines the
reasons social workers do not conduct research in his
article titled “The Changing Nature and Context of Social
Implications for Social Work Practice
Work Research,” suggests that social workers face an eth-
ical dilemma when conducting empirical research in The result of this study has important implications for
terms of feeling uncomfortable about reductionist experi- research utilization in social work. First and foremost,
ments and a tendency to reformulate complex and multi- social work needs to widen its scope, especially in
dimensional problems into small units that can be easily terms of bridging the gap between research and prac-
measured. tice (Gray, Sharland, Heinsch, & Schubert, 2014).
8 E. ERBAY
Research enables social work practice to gain a better
understanding of social work (Wells, Maschi, & Slater,
2012). However, it needs to be pointed out that social
workers are certainly not obliged to conduct research. It
is only suggested here that research would bring a scien-
tific look to social work practices, that these practices
would work on a more objective level once based on sci-
entific evidence, and lack of research would lead to short-
term solutions not based on any evidence. For example, a
social worker who works in child care institutions may
not achieve an effective result by implementing a pro-
gram solely based on her or his experiences. On the other
hand, a program that relies on appropriately designed
and conducted research would provide objective and
valid data that could in turn be employed to scientifically
structure the social work practice.
Improvement and awareness of social research
methods has great importance for social workers that
are providing services to different levels of client sys-
tems (Engel & Schutt, 2009). “Practitioner involve-
ment in research-evaluation, research, development or
general inquiry that is more small-scale, local,
grounded, and being carried out by professionals who
deliver directly embraced those self-same services
across a wide range of professions as-is an essential
ingredient of good practice …On the other hand,
social work and human services practitioners in the
field are frequently planned Involved in research, eval-
uation or practitioner inquiry as part of their primary
role” (Shaw, 2005, p. 1232).
Social workers should not be content with general
statements from producers or consumers that say a
difference was made; rather, they need to seek to iden-
tify those things that really make a difference and
result in sustained, research-based change in practice
(Gray, Sharland, Heinsch, & Schubert, 2014).
Bridging the gap between research and practice has
always been a challenge in social work and other pro-
fessions alike. Although it has been a hundred years
since Mary Richmond suggested that social work prac-
tice be guided by research, social work practitioners
generally tend to underrate research and rarely appeal
to scientific studies to guide their professional practice
(Rubin, 2014). Negligence toward the integration of
practice and research has caused social workers to
miss valuable opportunities to help clients improve
the quality of their lives. It is possible to integrate
practice and research for a variety of claims that arises
in the helping professions including claims about
problems (e.g., What is a problem? What is its preva-
lence? What kind of problem is it? How should a
problem be framed?), assessment measures, risks, the
effectiveness of intervention, the accuracy of outcome
measures, costs and benefits, and harms (Gambrill,
2015).
There is a deep-rooted discourse regarding the inte-
gration of research and practice with concerns that
there is insufficient incorporation of evidence-based
research into practice (DeFraia, 2015). To summarize,
integrating social work research into social work prac-
tice is almost universally accepted as an ideal
endeavor. Nevertheless, polarizations based upon con-
troversies between academic researchers and practi-
tioners have left their marks on the profession,
delaying the advance of the profession as well as the
clients’ opportunities for enjoying a higher quality of
life (Epstein, 2011, 2015).
In conclusion, this study reveals the social workers’
status with regard to conducting and reading research
within the context of evidence-based practice. It would
be appropriate for this research to be followed by a
qualitative study with the same research subject.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I express my gratitude to the social workers
who spared their precious time to fill out the online question-
naire and thus provided valuable data for this research. I am
€ ur Ugurluoglu for his sup-
grateful to Associate Professor Ozg€
port in the statistical analysis of the data. I am also very thank-
ful to Research Assistant Ahmet Ege for proofreading the
article as well as to Ayşecan Ay for proofreading the English
translation of the article.
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