Research: a firmer place in social work education?JSWEC July 2009

Jo MoriartyJill ManthorpeMartin Stevens

Shereen Hussein

Outline

Context Undertaken as part of wider project Why this has been a topic of concern

Methods Email/postal survey Telephone interviews with sub sample

Findings Signs of progress and of challenges

Discussion Taking things forward

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UK social sciences workforce

Social work academic workforce is: Comparatively small (<600) Comparatively mature (47 per

cent aged 50+) Context of:

Divergence between academic salaries and those as senior manager outside higher education

Increase in student numbers

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Relationship between research and social work 2000 Karen Lyons ‘The place of research in social

work education’ British Journal of Social Work, 30 (4): 433-447 In 1994 only a minority of social work qualifying

programmes taught research methods Less than a fifth staff held a doctorate About two thirds involved in some research Barriers included time and lack of research culture

in some departments

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Methods Sampling frame of around 800 names across UK

Universities and colleges offering social work qualifying programmes

Either through departmental web pages or (rarely) a list of social work staff in department

Postal or email questionnaire Email reminder

252 responses (about a third) Target was 200 Slightly more responses from people working in older

universities but otherwise responders and non responders seemed similar

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Not my usual location for data analysis!

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Gender

60 per cent of respondents were women High proportion for

social science subject (Mills et al, 2006)

However lower than in profession as whole Contrasts with student

profile

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Ethnicity

81 per cent described themselves as White British

Seven Asian respondents

Seven Black Caribbean respondents

Differs from profile in wider profession and among students

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More Helen Mirren than Lily Allen…

Women’s mean age was 48 (Men’s mean age was 52)

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Pathways to the ivory tower…

85 per cent had a social work qualification

67 per cent registered as social worker with a UK Care Council

Average age at which started work in academic sector was 37

45 per cent held doctorate

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Making the transition

“The main message I want to get across is the difficulty with the transition from practice to research. People new to academia need the opportunity to build on their CVs. They do not necessarily get that opportunity if [they are] shoved straight into teaching. It can be very daunting when coming into the academic world after being a rigidly controlled [local authority] environment.”

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The good news….

82 per cent had undertaken some kind of research in last two years

Difference between proportions undertaking research in ‘old’ and ‘new’ universities not statistically significant

39 per cent had had access to some research training in last two years

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But….

More time spent on teaching and administration than research More than a fifth spent

10 per cent or less of their time on research

Less than a tenth spent 50 per cent or more

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Finding time with other commitments “[Programme

directors] in social work always have a high admin load. It’s all the outside links that need to be made - contacts with the GSCC.”

“The problem is we have this workload balancing thing. You have to have so many hours teaching and my teaching was spread over each semester…[What made it more difficult was the fact that] it’s all new, so I am writing my teaching materials rather than [being] at the stage of updating them…”

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“T’ain’t what you know but the way that you do it” Logistic regression

looking at probability of receiving funding from a Research Council, government department, or national charity showed….

Holds PhDYears in academic

sectorWorks in pre 1992

universitySpends more than 40

per cent of time on research

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Access to research training

Almost half had had training in qualitative data analysis

Just over a tenth had training in quantitative data analysis

Other examples included Developing grant applications Writing skills Using bibliographic software

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Use of networks

Network Percentage reporting use of

None 38

British Association of Social Workers (BASW) 28

British Sociological Association (BSA) 12

Social Policy Association (SPA) 12

Social Services Research Group (SSRG) 11

National Children's Bureau Research Network 10British Association for the Study, Prevention and Care of Child Abuse and Neglect 10

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Other types of support

Mentoring schemes Access to research leave Writing groups

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Support in workplace

Similar between different types of university

Different by type of funding Better among those

in posts not funded by Higher Education Funding Councils or DELNI

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What people wanted most often

Better recognition of timing constraints on social work

More training Help finding out about different sources of

funding More support with applications from within

university

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Other suggestions

Opportunities to work across disciplines Could help with breadth of research

methodologies adopted Surprisingly little educational research

Partnerships across different universities Opportunities for learning from each other

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Research/teaching dividing line?

“I am [studying] at a prestigious university, and they don’t [bother] about students [but]…I am being taught by some of the best academics…At [the HEI where I teach we are] really focused on students and valuing diversity. If you come here as a student, this is about getting you through the course, which really fits my values. Though for me, I really want to be in an academic environment. It is really swings and roundabouts: neither is good or bad, just a different focus.”

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Discussion

Study suggests that research now has a higher profile in social work

New cadre of professionals with practice and research backgrounds Opportunities for professional doctorates Researcher Development Initiative

Limitations in size and scope of research Small scale projects often being completed

without any internal/external funding

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Thanks to…

ESRC for funding this Joan Orme for co-ordinating the bid and the

combined report 252 of you for completing a questionnaire

ESPECIALLY the 30 people who completed an interview and a questionnaire

Lizzy, Sean and Carla for help with stuffing envelopes and with data entry (the next generation?)

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