Dr. Fast’s Road Map to Social Work Practice and Evaluation Research (SWK6401)
Access the blog for this course (it contains links to all the student blogs and blog assignments from Dr. Fast.)
Accessing E-RES (Electronic Reserve)
All of the articles listed here are available on E-RES or “electronic reserve.” You can access E-RES from your home by clicking here
If you are off campus, E-RES will ask for your ID number (the barcode on your student ID, 13 digits!) and your password. Pollack Library will provide you with a password. If you need a password or forgot your password, call the Pollack Library at 212-960-5378 or email remote@yu.edu.
Each E-RES has an additional password. The password for this course is: 6401F. Click here for more E-RES help.
The articles are arranged alphabetically.
Your Blog
Blogs will be created and posted on www.Blogger.com during our first class, and every assignment--except the final assignment--will be submitted on the blog. While the software will generate its own stylistic oddities, be sure to leave spaces between paragraphs and, when possible, use APA style, particularly with citations and references. Every student will have access to every other students’ blog. This will let you:
- Help other students complete their assignment, if they have misunderstood it or are stuck.
- Use their responses to help you with your post.
The point of this is cooperative learning. This is obviously not permission to plagiarize. If you borrow or are influenced by a classmate's blog, cite them as you would any other author using APA style.
Remember to maintain your client's confidentiality . Be sure to write down your password and the name of your blog. Email the name of your blog to Dr. Fast so he can create a master list for class use.
Blog Assignments
1) My Agency (Due the day of Session 3)
- For your first post, I'd like you to write, in the language you would use to write a paper, about your field placement, and the kinds of clients with whom you work. Would any of these clients be appropriate for your semester project?
- Will you see them 8 to 12 times this semester?
- Are you attempting to change the client's behavior, thinking, or feeling in however modest a way?
- If you plan to write a self-improvement study, you may write about yourself in the third person, as though you were a client--in order to increase your privacy--or you can simply write about yourself. Whichever makes you more comfortable. If writing about yourself, use this assignment to describe the agency where you currently work, where you last worked, or, as a last resort, where you hope to work after you graduate.
- Please divide your writing into paragraphs! If you have difficulty with this because of constraints of the IBlogger software, confer with your classmates.
2) My Client (Due the day of Session 5)
For assignment 2, choose the client(s) you wish to work with for your single system design project. Be sure you answer these questions:
- Describe the client, protecting his or her confidentiality.
- How does the client feel about your evaluation study? Enthusiastic? Indifferent? Negative? Do you know why?
- How does your field instructor feel about it?
- What is the behavior you have chosen to modify? Be very specific in your answer.
- If this behavior is something you can see, (e.g. outbursts of anger, episodes of aggression, speaking out in a group.) count the number of times the client engages in it during a certain time period. If it makes sense, you may also want to measure the duration opf the behavior.
- If possible, please use one of the WALMYR standardized scales to measure an aspect of your client's behavior that cannot be directly observed.
- Can you also use a self-anchoring scale to measure still another aspect of his or her behavior? If so, what will it represent? What will the extremes of the scale--the highest score and the lowest score--indicate?
Please incorporate at least four important ideas from the textbook into your blog posting. Cite them as you would any authority or scholarly source. Please use APA style.
3) My Intervention (Due the day of session 7)
- Describe in detailed and concrete terms, how you will intervene with your client.
- Cite and discuss three scholarly articles that support that this intervention is best treatment for this particular problem, or at least that it is evidence-based practice.
- What theorysupports the efficacy of this intervention? How does the theory suggest that it will be effective?
4) A Snap-shot of My Practice (Due the day of session 9)
Compose, or copy into your blog, a process recording, including a brief verbatim of your work with the client whom you described in Blog Assignment 2. Capture an incident where you applied the intervention described in blog assignment 3, and describe how your client responded to it. If you mention any puiblished works or knowledge statements, please attribute them (i.e. provide a citation.)
5) Final Assignment (Due at the time of your presentation)
You should be able to combine many or all of your posts into a paper of about 10 pages, with citations. You will be expected to present your “evaluation project” to the class using PowerPoint or other presentation software. The presentation should last about 15 minutes and will be scheduled for session 12, 13, or 14.
- Use APA style (see http://www.dianahacker.com/pdfs/Hacker-Shaw-APA.pdf )
- Write an introduction describing the purpose of the paper. Include a description of the sections of the paper. In other words, tell the reader what you are planning to tell her.
- Each section of the paper should be copied and pasted from your blog assignments. BUT: make it look neat so aging professors will find it easy to read. Use APA style rules about fonts, line spacing, and paragraphs. (most of you do that anyway.) Use APA subheadings for each section, as in the sample document link provided above.
- Move all references to the reference section and re-alphabetize..
- Finally, provide a concluding section, which summarizes your paper (tell the reader what you have told her.) What have you learned from this assignment? How might you do things differently next time?
- Blogs = 95% of paper. New material = 5% of paper. This project should not take you mopre than 90 minutes.
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Week 1 - Why Study Single System Design? Setting up a blog for the course.
- Introductions
- Sociometrics (click here to learn about the “Small World” phenomenon)
- Reviewing the curriculum
- Why is SW evaluation important?
- An overview of single system design
- Choosing a subject
Can you define the behavior you are trying to change?
How will you measure the behavior?
Can you specify a goal?
Will you be seeing the client weekly for at least 8 sessions?
Read chapters 1 and 2 in Evaluating Practice, 5th Edition, by Bloome, Fischer & Orme
Read carefully: Applying Single Case Evaluation in Social Work (Kazi & Wilson, 1996) (available on E-RES)
A comprehensive article on Single Subject design by John Wesson. Describes using Excel to keep track of data.
Also: Start work on Blog Assignment 1 (make sure Dr. Fast has your blog address)
Week 2 - Research Ethics - How does SSE differ from research?
Applying Single Case Evaluation in Social Work & Research Ethics (available on E-RES)
Powerpoints for this week:
Read these links:
Week 3 & 4 - Measuring Behavior - Baselines, Self-anchoring scales & the WALMYR Standardized Scales
Read and prepare to discuss: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Perfectionism: Initial Evaluation Studies by Ferguson & Rodway (on E-RES) and prepare to discuss Group Treatment for Men Who Batter (Single system design with groups and staggered baselines).
Review the Powerpoint
Please read Chapter 5, Behavioral Observation in Bloom, Fischer and Orme.
In class we will discuss standardized tests. We will practice scoring a WALMYR scales.
Please read the chapter on standardized tests in Bloom, Fischer & Orme and review the WALMYR scales to see which is most relevant for your client.
Blog Assignment 1 due Class 3 before midnight! Begin work on Blog Assignment 2.
Week 5 & 6 -- Using CBT
Social work services as a component of palliative care with terminal cancer patients – measures of central tendency
Using cognitive behavioral therapy, the triple column technique.
A film clip of Albert Ellis working the patient named Gloria.
Please read, listen to, and study all the following links:
More about the triple column technique here, and here, and here.
Wikipedia entree on CBT
National Alliance on Mental Illness on CBT
CBT for treatment of anxiety
NPR Broadcasts on Cognitive Therapy
Links from Association for Cognitive & Behavioral Therapy
Note Bene:
Single subject designs are often used in conjunction with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Hence many of the examples used in this course demonstrate brief treatment using CBT. Because it is conducive to brief treatment, relatively simple to learn, and firmly based in theory, I devote two classes to the history and use of CBT. This unit does not in any way constitute an endorsement of cognitive behavioral therapy by WSSW nor Dr. Fast, nor will students who have attended this class be in any way certified or considered capable of performing any but the most rudimentary CBT interventions, and then ONLY with the oversight and ongoing supervision of Dr. Fast and their field instructor. Should a student choose to use a CBT style intervention for her class project, she must be sure to have the permission of Dr. Fast and her field instructor. In such cases the same ethical and legal restraints apply that would apply to any intervention undertaken during a first year fieldwork assignment.
Blog assignment 2 is due on week 5!
Week 7 - Treatment Plans
In preparation for this class, read and prepare to discuss Group Treatment for Men who Batter
In class, we will divide into groups and create treatment plans for our clients.
Blog Assignment 3 is due!
Week 8 - Working with Variables
Read Bloom, Fischer & Orme, Chapters Chapter 12 - Baselining & Chapter 14 The Experimental Single System Design
In preparation for this class, read and prepare to discuss Reframing and Paradoxical Instructions to Overcome Resistance in the Treatment of Delinquent Youths
Understanding Variables
Week 9 - Using SingWin
Psychosocial treatment of depression in women: Nine single subject evaluations.
Using the SingWin software.
Practice entering data into SingWin, moving graphs and graphics into powerpoint from singwin and other sources.
Blog assignment 4 due.
Weeks 10 & 11
Inputting data – finding means
Discuss the final assignment. Using Powerpoint. Powerpoint template for the final assignment.
Stats for single subject design:
- Comparison of means, median & mode (which best conveys the "truth"?)
- Simple Moving Average (SMA)
- Celeration Line
- Chi-square
- T-test
- Shewart Chart
Week 12, 13 and 14
Student presentations (along with blog assignment 5) due these three classes..
