Social Work Research Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Focus group discussion is generally used in qualitative research.

A focus group brings together six to twelve people with a shared experience and a facilitator who guides an open discussion on a topic. What it produces is talk: opinions, meanings, disagreements and the language people use, which the researcher analyses for themes rather than counts. That makes it a qualitative method.

Quantitative research relies on standardised measurement and statistical analysis, typically through structured questionnaires. Quasi-experimental designs compare groups without random assignment to test an intervention. 'Quasi-survey' is not a recognised research type.

Answer: D

It violates the assurance of anonymity.

Before data collection, researchers commonly promise respondents that their identity will not be disclosed. Revealing who said what, despite that commitment, breaks the specific ethical principle of anonymity and confidentiality, which protects respondents from harm, embarrassment or reprisal.

Integrity and transparency are broader virtues of the researcher, and beneficence is the duty to do good and avoid harm. Breaking the promise also falls short of these in a general sense, but the principle directly and specifically violated by disclosing identities is the assurance of anonymity.

Answer: C

It is an empiricist statement.

Empiricism holds that knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation. 'I believe nothing until I see it with my own eyes' accepts only what is observed, which is the empiricist position and the foundation of the empirical, evidence-based approach in research.

An assumption is something taken for granted without proof, the opposite of insisting on seeing. A hypothesis is a tentative, testable statement about the relationship between variables. Rationalism treats reason, not the senses, as the main source of knowledge, so a 'rational' statement in that sense would contradict this one.

Answer: C

The key is (A) is true but (R) is false.

Following Karl Popper, a scientific theory must be falsifiable: it must make claims that observation could, in principle, show to be wrong. Theories are therefore open to being refuted or disproved by evidence, so (A) is true.

(R) says the opposite, that theory is always irrefutable. A theory that nothing could ever refute would, on Popper's criterion, not be scientific at all, so (R) is false. Since (R) is false, it cannot explain (A), which rules out both 'both true' codes, and (A) being true rules out the last.

Answer: D

Chi-square is a non-parametric test.

Parametric tests such as the t-test assume the data come from a population with a particular distribution, usually normal, and estimate its parameters such as the mean. The chi-square test makes no such assumption about the population: it compares observed frequencies in categories with the frequencies expected under a hypothesis, and works with nominal or ordinal data. That is why it is classed as non-parametric (distribution-free).

Validity and reliability are properties of a measuring instrument, assessed by other procedures; they are not types of statistical significance test.

Answer: D

All four are tools of data collection, so the answer is (a), (b), (c), (d).

The interview gathers data through direct questioning; the questionnaire is a written set of questions answered by the respondent; e-mail is used to send questionnaires and conduct interviews with respondents at a distance; and the focus group discussion (FGD) gathers data from a guided discussion among a small group of people sharing a common background.

Options stopping at (a) and (b), at (a), (b) and (c), or naming e-mail alone, leave out methods the key counts as tools of data collection.

Answer: C

The sources of knowledge are (b), (c), (d): intuition, authority and history.

Research methods texts describe several ways people acquire knowledge before and alongside the scientific method: authority (accepting what experts, texts or tradition say), intuition (self-evident insight or reasoning), and history, the accumulated record of past experience. Research also uses these as starting points that it then tests.

Superstition (a) is belief without rational or empirical basis and is not accepted as a source of knowledge in research. Every option except (b), (c), (d) includes superstition, so they are all wrong.

Answer: D

The answer is (a) is independent and (b) is dependent.

In an experiment the independent variable is the one the researcher manipulates or introduces, and the dependent variable is the outcome measured to see whether it changed. Here the researcher applies counselling techniques (a) and looks at crisis resolution (b) as the result.

So counselling is the independent variable and crisis resolution the dependent one. Reversing them confuses cause with effect, and calling both independent or both dependent leaves the design without a cause or without an outcome to measure.

Answer: D

The basic single subject design is the AB design.

In single subject (single system) research, A stands for the baseline phase, in which the target behaviour is measured repeatedly before any intervention, and B for the intervention phase, in which measurement continues while the intervention is applied. Comparing the two phases shows whether change followed the intervention.

The ABC design adds a second, different intervention (C) and so is an extension of the basic design. 'AAA' and 'A' designs have no intervention phase at all, so they could not test an intervention.

Answer: A

The normal distribution curve is Bell-shaped.

The normal curve is symmetrical about its mean, with the mean, median and mode all at the centre. Values cluster around the centre and taper off equally on both sides, giving the familiar bell shape; about 68% of cases lie within one standard deviation of the mean and about 95% within two.

A skewed curve is by definition not normal, because one tail is longer than the other. 'Z-shaped' and 'W-shaped' do not describe the curve; the letter Z is used for standard scores of a normal distribution, which is the likely source of the trap.