The Practice of Research in Social Work

This book helps readers achieve the core competencies essential for social work practice.
Evidence-based practice comes alive through illustrations of actual social work research. This forth edition is updated with new examples, the latest research, and expanded material on technology and qualitative methods.

Rafael J. Engel, PhD, is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD (1988) from the University of Wisconsin, his MSW (1979) from the University of Michigan, and his BA (1978) from the University of Pennsylvania. He coordinates the graduate certificate program in aging and is the principal investigator for the Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education. He has written Fundamentals of Social Work Research (with Russell Schutt) and Measuring Race and Ethnicity (with Larry E. Davis). He is co-editor-in-chief of the journal, Intergenerational Relations and a member of the editorial board of Race and Social Problems. He has authored journal articles on such topics as poverty in later life, welfare benefits, and depressive symptomatology, and he has written a variety of monographs reporting agency-based evaluations. His research experience includes funded research studies on gambling, faith-based organizations, and employment in later life as well as funded evaluation research studies on welfare-to-work programs and drug and alcohol prevention programs. His most recent research involves older adults and gambling prevention. Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston; Clinical Research Scientist I at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and Lecturer (part-time) in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and his postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University. In addition to co-authoring The Practice of Research in Criminology and Criminal Justice and Fundamentals of Research in Criminology and Criminal Justice (with Ronet Bachman), he is the author of Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research and Understanding the Social World: Research Methods for the 21st Century, and co-author of Making Sense of the Social World (with Dan Chambliss), Research Methods in Psychology (with Paul G. Nestor), The Practice of Research in Social Work and Fundamentals of Social Work Research (with Ray Engel), and Research Methods in Education (with Joseph Check), all with SAGE Publications, as well as author of Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness and Organization in a Changing Environment, coeditor of Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society and of The Organizational Response to Social Problems, and coauthor of Responding to the Homeless: Policy and Practice. He has authored and coauthored more than 65 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as many book chapters and research reports on homelessness, mental health, service preferences and satisfaction, organizations, and the sociology of law. His current and most recent research includes a $200,000 National Science Foundation-funded study of the social impact of the pandemic in Boston, with collaborators at the Center for Survey Research (UMass Boston) and Northeastern University, a $3.8 million randomized comparative effectiveness trial of two socially-oriented interventions to improve community functioning among persons diagnosed with serious mental illness, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with collaborators at the Harvard Medical School, and a $1 million Veterans Health Administration-funded study of peer support with colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School  and the VA.  His past research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Fetzer Institute, and state agencies. Details are available at

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