Best Practice in Teaching Advanced Research Skills to Social Work Students: Lessons from a Training Institution

By:
Dr. Willem Roestenburg
To add a paper, Login.

Social Work students do not choose the subject field for a love of mathematics. In fact very few such students have had maths training at school level and some are not fully computer literate. Teaching social work students how to do research that involves advanced logical cognitive processing and incorporates often complex mathematical skills is certainly a challenge. This paper presents a complex but simple to follow format that has been tested in an academic institution and that is used to teach research and specifically statistical data analysis skills to social work students. The results obtained indicate an average 90% pass rate and students report that the training is one of the most empowering experiences of their professional training.


Keywords: Training, Advanced Research Skills, Data Analysis, Technology, Empowerment, Mathematics, Statistics, Social Work
Stream: Adult, Vocational, Tertiary and Professional Learning
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Dr. Willem Roestenburg

Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Work
Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

The author has been teaching research to Honours and Masters level Social Work students for the past 7 years. He has a keen interest in teaching research methods and specifically statistical data analysis techniques. He likes to empower students with advanced data analysis skills that empower them to become competitive in the professional arena. His main challenge in educational programmes has been to present SPSS in a practical format to his research students. His own research spans the field of scale development, social indicators for measuring well being in society. He does research consultation and is co-director of a research company.

Ref: L07P0504