Part I: AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY IN SOCIAL WORK.1. Why Study Research?2. Evidence-Based Practice.3. Factors Influencing the Research Process. 4. Comparing Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods of Inquiry.

Part II: THE ETHICAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OF SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH.5. The Ethics and Politics of Social Work Research.6. Culturally Competent Research. Part III: PROBLEM FORMULATION AND MEASUREMENT.7. Problem Formulation.

8. Conceptualization in Quantitative and Qualitative Inquiry.9. Measurement.10. Constructing Measurement Instruments. Part IV: DESIGNS FOR EVALUATING PROGRAMS AND PRACTICE.11.

Causal Inference and Experimental Designs. 12. Quasi-Experimental Designs. 13. Single-Case Evaluation Designs.14. Program Evaluation. Part V: DATA-COLLECTION METHODS WITH LARGE SOURCES OF DATA.

15. Sampling. 16. Survey Research.17. Analyzing Existing Data: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. Part VI: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS.18.

Qualitative Research: General Principles.19. Qualitative Research: Specific Methods.20. Qualitative Data Analysis. Part VII: ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE DATA.21. Descriptive Data Analysis.

22. Inferential Data Analysis. Part VIII: WRITING RESEARCH PROPOSALS AND REPORTS.23. Writing Research Proposals and Reports.Appendix A: Using the Library. Appendix B: Statistics for Estimating Sampling Error.Appendix C: Critically Appraising Meta-Analyses.