Social Work Readers Describe “Useful Knowledge”

Four times each year the journal Social Work arrives in the mail of the 150,000 members of NASW, concrete evidence of the commitment of our profession to the development and dissemination of knowledge. As social workers, we understand that our knowledge base is fundamental to the definition and legitimacy of our profession. More important, we understand that through knowledge we advance the effectiveness and efficiency of our practice. Particularly with the growing interest in empirically-based practice, social workers seek useful knowledge even if they disagree on exactly what useful knowledge is. In a context in which "researchers complain that practitioners do not use knowledge they generate; (and) practitioners complain knowledge tastes like cardboard" (see July 2003 editorial), I would like to bridge the researcher-practitioner divide by increasing the utility of the journal. Thus, in the July 2003 issue of Social Work, I invited readers to respond to a survey to describe what types of knowledge they find most useful. One year later, I report to you the views of the readers of Social Work. Several ideas influenced the construction of the survey. First, at least one reader had written to me as editor-in-chief to encourage me to privilege social work practitioners as authors, reviewers, and board members. The premise seems to be that knowledge generated by social work practitioners --those in the trenches every day--is the most relevant and trustworthy knowledge. Another idea, one deriving from the knowledge utilization literature, was that we can identify two broad types of knowledge use: one "conceptual," or the use of knowledge to influence how we think about a problem, and one "instrumental," the use of knowledge to solve problems. It is sometimes suggested that one type of knowledge is more useful than another. Finally, a third idea that influenced the survey was the possibility that we can distinguish between relational and textual knowledge. This idea is that social workers, indeed all knowledge consumers, give more credence to or find more useful knowledge that derives from a face-to-face interaction compared with knowledge gained from written sources. Thus, in this very brief survey, we asked readers of Social Work to tell us what types of journal articles they found relevant and useful--both in terms of content and source. What types of articles do readers find most relevant and useful? The three types of articles that readers identified as most useful are those that provide information or evidence about (1) a social problem or clinical diagnosis, (2) the effectiveness of social work practice, and (3) a population group. A very close fourth are articles providing information about social work ethics. Articles about the social work profession itself also are considered useful by practitioners. In comparison, Social Work readers reported that the types of articles that are least useful are those that give information about research methodology and epistemology. What information sources do readers find most useful? In our information-rich society, social workers are inundated with knowledge and information relevant to practice. When we asked a set of questions about sources of knowledge they preferred, readers of Social Work provided several valuable insights. First, their views are consistent with earlier findings in the literature: They prefer sources of information that are relational rather than textual. Specifically, their two most preferred sources of information are (1) discussions of cases with other social workers, and (2) workshops on social work practice. Clearly, readers value knowledge from the frontlines of practice. The third most useful source of information are "articles and books by social work practitioners". "Articles and books by social work researchers/scholars" and "articles and books by experts outside social work" also were rated as useful, but not quite as highly rated as work reported by practitioners. …