This paper reviews, summarizes, and analyzes recent empirical research on social work practice ed... more This paper reviews, summarizes, and analyzes recent empirical research on social work practice education. It describes general directions of social work practice education and discusses implications of research findings. Findings attest to the profession's commitment to developing social work practice methods based upon testable theories, knowledge, and skills. Important questions remain, however, about the effectiveness of various teaching programs, methods,
The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals be... more The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals between 1989 and 1993 were reviewed and tabulated to produce a ranking of the colleges and universities whose faculty are making the most substantive contributions to the social work literature. The results of this analysis are compared with the findings of two similar, previously published
Supporting the client's right to effective treatment: touching a raw nerve by Bruce A. T... more Supporting the client's right to effective treatment: touching a raw nerve by Bruce A. Thyer , Laura L. Myers Saul Raw has prepared a thoughtful response to our earlier article (Myers & Thyer, 1997), in which we argued that social workers should hav.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Jun 30, 1995
Various meta-contingencies inadvertently promote the perpetuation of bogus psychotherapies and ot... more Various meta-contingencies inadvertently promote the perpetuation of bogus psychotherapies and other human service interventions. This article outlines some of these perverse incentives and describes counter-controls which could be adopted by the various professional associations, state licensing boards, accreditation bodies, and service providers. These counter-controls have the potential to move human services in the direction of becoming a truly empirical clinical science. This would directly enhance the ethical appropriateness and humanistic goals of the human service professions.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1300 J200v04n01_05, Sep 25, 2008
Racial discrimination is a phenomenon that is reported to occur throughout many domains of servic... more Racial discrimination is a phenomenon that is reported to occur throughout many domains of service provision in health care and mental health care, and is a major research concern of the National Institute of Health. Many service delivery venues have received attention to address the potential presence of racial discrimination, although a form of mental health service delivery in hospital emergency rooms known as emergency services has received sparse attention. The current study is an investigation into the presence of racial discrimination and the potential impact of such discrimination in a rural Southeastern three county public mental health system. Methodological considerations of the research approach are also discussed.
Previous research on the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy has shown that irrational be... more Previous research on the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy has shown that irrational belief systems are associated with global indices of psychopathology such as state and trait anxiety and depression. In an extension of this earlier work a correlational study was conducted on the relationships between irrationality and a self-report measure of highly specific indices of psychiatric symptomatology, the Symptom Checklist-90. The sample consisted of 62 undergraduates (37 female, 25 male, X age = 21 years) enrolled in an upper-level psychology course. Seven of the nine correlations were statistically significant, indicating that greater irrationality was associated with higher levels of psychiatric symptomatology. These results provide additional evidence in support of the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy.
Fifty-seven MSW students enrolled in two different practice courses were exposed to approximately... more Fifty-seven MSW students enrolled in two different practice courses were exposed to approximately equal amounts (five 4-hour sessions) of live, in-class instruction and two-way interactive televised instruction. Separate post-course evaluations of both teaching methods, using a previously published measure of instructional quality, significantly favored live instruction over televised distance learning. More empirical research demonstrating the potential benefits of distance learning
The validity of distinguishing between the diagnoses of panic disorder and agoraphobia with panic... more The validity of distinguishing between the diagnoses of panic disorder and agoraphobia with panic attacks was examined in a study of 20 patients with each disorder. Comparison of demographic, psychometric, and clinical features of the two groups revealed few differences. Agoraphobics scored higher on ratings of interpersonal sensitivity, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and alcohol use. Panic disorder patients more frequently reported periods of remissions from anxiety symptomatology. These results support the validity of conceptualizing agoraphobia with panic attacks and panic disorder as subcategories of a core endogenous anxiety disorder.
This article describes a preliminary effort to evaluate inpatient psychiatric services at the Car... more This article describes a preliminary effort to evaluate inpatient psychiatric services at the Carl Vinson DVA Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia. The facility annually treats a large number of veterans for a variety of psychiatric disorders. To determine whether these veterans improved following care, a simple pretest-posttest group design was employed, using the SCL-90-R, to assess psychiatric symptomatology before and after inpatient treatment. Both statistically significant and practically meaningful improvements in symptomatology were evident at discharge. While the research design does not permit causal inferences, low-cost evaluations such as this one simply demonstrating that patients get better are important first steps in empirically determining the efficacy of inpatient psychiatric services, and represent one means of demonstrating accountable practice.
The use of study questions to guide student learning and in-class discussion is presented as an a... more The use of study questions to guide student learning and in-class discussion is presented as an alternative to the traditional methods of instruction in social work which rely upon formal lectures, and mid-term and final examinations and term papers to motivate studying. The positive results of two separate investigations on the value of study questions is described, and the instructional technique is suggested as worthy of consideration by social work educators.
This paper reviews, summarizes, and analyzes recent empirical research on social work practice ed... more This paper reviews, summarizes, and analyzes recent empirical research on social work practice education. It describes general directions of social work practice education and discusses implications of research findings. Findings attest to the profession's commitment to developing social work practice methods based upon testable theories, knowledge, and skills. Important questions remain, however, about the effectiveness of various teaching programs, methods,
The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals be... more The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals between 1989 and 1993 were reviewed and tabulated to produce a ranking of the colleges and universities whose faculty are making the most substantive contributions to the social work literature. The results of this analysis are compared with the findings of two similar, previously published
Supporting the client's right to effective treatment: touching a raw nerve by Bruce A. T... more Supporting the client's right to effective treatment: touching a raw nerve by Bruce A. Thyer , Laura L. Myers Saul Raw has prepared a thoughtful response to our earlier article (Myers & Thyer, 1997), in which we argued that social workers should hav.
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Jun 30, 1995
Various meta-contingencies inadvertently promote the perpetuation of bogus psychotherapies and ot... more Various meta-contingencies inadvertently promote the perpetuation of bogus psychotherapies and other human service interventions. This article outlines some of these perverse incentives and describes counter-controls which could be adopted by the various professional associations, state licensing boards, accreditation bodies, and service providers. These counter-controls have the potential to move human services in the direction of becoming a truly empirical clinical science. This would directly enhance the ethical appropriateness and humanistic goals of the human service professions.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1300 J200v04n01_05, Sep 25, 2008
Racial discrimination is a phenomenon that is reported to occur throughout many domains of servic... more Racial discrimination is a phenomenon that is reported to occur throughout many domains of service provision in health care and mental health care, and is a major research concern of the National Institute of Health. Many service delivery venues have received attention to address the potential presence of racial discrimination, although a form of mental health service delivery in hospital emergency rooms known as emergency services has received sparse attention. The current study is an investigation into the presence of racial discrimination and the potential impact of such discrimination in a rural Southeastern three county public mental health system. Methodological considerations of the research approach are also discussed.
Previous research on the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy has shown that irrational be... more Previous research on the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy has shown that irrational belief systems are associated with global indices of psychopathology such as state and trait anxiety and depression. In an extension of this earlier work a correlational study was conducted on the relationships between irrationality and a self-report measure of highly specific indices of psychiatric symptomatology, the Symptom Checklist-90. The sample consisted of 62 undergraduates (37 female, 25 male, X age = 21 years) enrolled in an upper-level psychology course. Seven of the nine correlations were statistically significant, indicating that greater irrationality was associated with higher levels of psychiatric symptomatology. These results provide additional evidence in support of the clinical theory of Rational Emotive Therapy.
Fifty-seven MSW students enrolled in two different practice courses were exposed to approximately... more Fifty-seven MSW students enrolled in two different practice courses were exposed to approximately equal amounts (five 4-hour sessions) of live, in-class instruction and two-way interactive televised instruction. Separate post-course evaluations of both teaching methods, using a previously published measure of instructional quality, significantly favored live instruction over televised distance learning. More empirical research demonstrating the potential benefits of distance learning
The validity of distinguishing between the diagnoses of panic disorder and agoraphobia with panic... more The validity of distinguishing between the diagnoses of panic disorder and agoraphobia with panic attacks was examined in a study of 20 patients with each disorder. Comparison of demographic, psychometric, and clinical features of the two groups revealed few differences. Agoraphobics scored higher on ratings of interpersonal sensitivity, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and alcohol use. Panic disorder patients more frequently reported periods of remissions from anxiety symptomatology. These results support the validity of conceptualizing agoraphobia with panic attacks and panic disorder as subcategories of a core endogenous anxiety disorder.
This article describes a preliminary effort to evaluate inpatient psychiatric services at the Car... more This article describes a preliminary effort to evaluate inpatient psychiatric services at the Carl Vinson DVA Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia. The facility annually treats a large number of veterans for a variety of psychiatric disorders. To determine whether these veterans improved following care, a simple pretest-posttest group design was employed, using the SCL-90-R, to assess psychiatric symptomatology before and after inpatient treatment. Both statistically significant and practically meaningful improvements in symptomatology were evident at discharge. While the research design does not permit causal inferences, low-cost evaluations such as this one simply demonstrating that patients get better are important first steps in empirically determining the efficacy of inpatient psychiatric services, and represent one means of demonstrating accountable practice.
The use of study questions to guide student learning and in-class discussion is presented as an a... more The use of study questions to guide student learning and in-class discussion is presented as an alternative to the traditional methods of instruction in social work which rely upon formal lectures, and mid-term and final examinations and term papers to motivate studying. The positive results of two separate investigations on the value of study questions is described, and the instructional technique is suggested as worthy of consideration by social work educators.
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