Download class 10 v2

SWK 707 Research for Social Work Practice
Nechama Sammet Moring
CLASS 10

Plan for tonight
 6:00-6:10 logistics, check in
 6:10-6:25 literature review lecture
 6:25-7:00 literature review activity
 7:00-7:30 peer review your introduction and recommendations
 7:30-7:40 break
 7:40-8:30 evaluation design lecture and worksheets/ post its
 8:30-8:50 collecting evaluation data
 8:50 evaluations, I promise
Notes on assignment 2
 Overall, excellent and you’re in great shape for assignment 3
 Take credit for your clinical experience-name yourself as a source! Integrate this
experience into your evaluation of studies-you know what you’re doing!
 Operationalize, operationalize, operationalize! (what does “successful” or “it
worked” mean?)
 Please use page #s
 Please proofread
Selecting studies
 Not the first 10 you find!
 You are evaluating YOUR INTERVENTION, not the causes of your social problem. OK to
accept some things as givens (i.e. some kids dislike school, for potentially many reasons,
but this is not super relevant to a program to improve grades)
 Bench science vs social science: the chemistry of how prenatal vitamins are absorbed vs
answering “do prenatal vitamins reduce low birthweight?”
 Be outcome focused!
 Literature reviews and systematic reviews: describe findings but evaluate how the authors
selected and evaluated studies-do you agree or disagree with their methods and analysis?
Strengths and limitations
 Rationale for why the study was done is important but don’t dwell on it. Instead,
focus on integrating findings to answer YOUR research question
 Not agreeing with you is not a limitation-it’s a consideration. Agreeing with you
or supporting your desired intervention is also not a strength-it’s a consideration
 Your task is to evaluate the QUALITY of the evidence, not simply amass it.
Mechanism of action and direction of association
 Which came first?
 Any confounders? (I didn’t take prenatal
vitamins because I couldn’t afford
them (or food) my baby was low birth
weight?)
 Unless the RESEARCH specifically
evaluates mechanism of action (how it
works) or direction, we just don’t know.
 Avoid assumption
Avoiding assumption part 1: ordering pizza
I like
mushrooms
and
pepperoni
on my pizzadoes that
sound ok to
you all?
I’m not
really a
mushroom
fan. Could
we do just
pepperoni?
You and your friends order pizza
Pepperoni is
awesome! Ok
with you? We
probably need
a large for all
of us, huh?
Cool, I’ll call
Dominos.
They have
great
breadsticks-I’ll
get some
I might like
mushrooms
but I haven’t
examined my
Let’s
bias about
operation
that
alize pizza
toppings.
Do we
understand the
time sequence
of mushrooms
becoming pizza
toppings?
Researchers try to order pizza
We should
determine
a causal
pathway
before we
proceed
Avoiding assumptions
 Research is full of assumptions, because people are full of assumptions, because
assumptions helped us navigate avoiding wooly mammoth when we were cave
people
 Good research/researchers question ALL the assumptions.
 Not all research is good
 You, as the research consumer, are evaluating how well the researchers avoided
assumption, and if they made any assumptions that impact the quality or validity
of of their findings
Problems you see here:
 “The sample consisted of Latino children from immigrant families who attended a
neighborhood Head Start program. Children’s social interactions were evaluated for
appropriateness and were ranked either 1, appropriate, or 2, inappropriate.”
 “survivors of domestic violence benefit from internet-based information about the
importance of getting primary care, including cervical and breast cancer screening”
 “As treatment is a desired resource in low-income communities, we made counseling
(provided by a medical student) available at community health centers.”
 “Children who have experienced negative events, like divorce of their parents, or who
come from non-intact families/lack fathers are at higher risk of dental cavities”
Avoid assumption and operationalize
 If researchers haven’t operationalized their
variables, take note
 Watch “assumption words” like negative/positive,
inappropriate/appropriate, safe/unsafe,
healthy/unhealthy, complete/intact, progress
 What does progress mean?
 WHO DEFINES positive, inappropriate, healthy etc?
 Who is left out of this definition?
Other tips for avoiding assumption
 Know your own assumptions and bias. Journal/talk to a friend and
articulate your own beliefs.
 Your beliefs are incredibly valid. But separate YOUR beliefs from
proven research facts/correlations/causation
 Remember you never know the direction of the relationship (did the
pizza or the pepperoni come first?)

consider correlation vs causation
3 tests needed to prove causation:
 1. are the 2 variables
correlated?
 2. Did the independent
variable come first? (time)
 3. Have you removed all
confounding factors that
could explain the
relationship?
Literature review
 Organizing and synthesizing information
 Don’t go down the rabbit hole
 Audience: intelligent but uninformed about your topic adult (me)
The Brilliant Best Friend System
 For each article, write the MAIN findings/take home messages ONLY on
a separate index card as well as the author’s name so you can track it
later
 Once you’ve prepared your index cards, sort them into piles by theme.
This is a lot like grounded coding
 Ideas that are interesting but beyond the scope of your paper go onto
a post-it and into your ziplock for later. It’s ok to put index cards into
your ziplock, but don’t “disappear” findings that contradict your
intervention-these are important to address.
Example: Managing disclosures of abuse by research
participants with IDD (piles)
 Higher rates of sexual violence against people with disabilities  higher likelihood of
enrolling survivors of violence
 Barriers to reporting abuse
 Barriers to justice for abuse survivors with IDD (and impact on abuse prevalence)
 Research as a safe environment for disclosures (or not)
 Appropriate responses by professionals (not researchers) to disclosures
 Wildcard but important
 Ziplock for later: LGBTQ people w/IDD completely absent from literature; impact of
unaddressed trauma on “functioning”; representation, visibility and feminism/why this
isn’t a feminist issue; historical connection between rape, incest and eugenics movement
Further sorting
 Now that all your literature is in piles, approach each pile and do a further sort. Identify
main themes within each pile
 For each pile and each theme, refer back to your assignment 2 to think about the quality
of the evidence. Are there a lot of studies that agree/show the same thing? Take
advantage of all the work you already did evaluating the quality of the evidence.
 Write a summary paragraph for each pile. Provide an outline of main findings ACROSS
STUDIES and discuss quality of evidence.
 Using a bias chart (see handout) will help you assess quality of the evidence.
 For each pile, is any information missing? (these are the gaps you want to identify)
Example: Combining, evaluating, providing selective
detail, identifying gaps in each pile
 Higher rates of sexual violence against people with disabilities  higher likelihood of
enrolling survivors of violence. COMBINING: There is extensive, high quality evidence
showing that people with disabilities experience much higher rates of sexual violence
victimization (Swango-Wilson, 2009; McCarthy 2011; McCormack et al, 2006; Jones et
al, 2016). SELECTIVE DETAIL: People with intellectual disabilities are even more likely
than their counterparts with other kinds of disabilities to experience sexual violence
(Horner-Johnson & Drum, 2006). We know that people with ID are consensually
participating in research at higher rates than ever before (Ianoco, 2005). GAPS: While
common sense suggests that this higher rate of sexual violence victimization means that
researchers who enroll people with IDD in their studies are more likely to encounter
research participants who have survived sexual violence, this has not yet been studied.
Though some preliminary studies suggest that research participants with IDD view
participatory action research as an opportunity to reduce sexual violence in their
communities (Northrup et al, 2010), we lack understanding of researchers’ role in
responding to sexual violence against people with IDD.
Let’s try it with 2 articles
 Using assignment 2, work with a peer to identify themes/categories (piles) and put
important findings (only) from your first study onto cards
 Use your ziplocks as needed to discard interesting but less relevant information for later
 Switch and help your peer put findings from her first study onto cards and identify
themes/categories for her piles
 Sort your cards into piles
 If you have time, put findings from your second study onto cards and add these findings to
your piles
 Summarize each pile
 Buy an index card sorter (or some envelopes) and continue your sorting at home
Peer review: read and discuss each partner’s work,
especially:
Introduction
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Is their writing respectful and
professional?
Is their writing clear and concise?
Do they have a clear population?
Do they have a clear SOCIAL problem?
Do they clearly convey why the social
problem is important? (the so what test)?
Do they give you just enough information
about their agency that you know why the
agency is a good fit for offering the
intervention?
Recommendation






Is their writing respectful and
professional? Clear and concise?
Is their intervention clear, with enough
details to picture it, but not
overwhelming?
Does their intervention address their
social problem?
Is their intervention attentive to human
rights, client choice and ethics?
Does this intervention have clear goals
that are measurable and specific?
Does the intervention consider the 3
“wheels” of evidence based practice?
Evaluation
Social problem
• Has real, negative
impacts on
individuals and
society
• Is action-able
• Is contexualized
Intervention
• Specifically designed
to address the social
problem or lessen its
negative impacts in
your population
• Tailored to your
population and
feasible
evaluation
• Concretely
measure if the
intervention is
working
• Does the
intervention
effectively
address or lessen
impacts of the
social problem?
In other words, how do we know we’re meeting our
goals?
 Program evaluation
 Process evaluation
 Outcome evaluation
What questions do we want to ask? What’s important? (this shapes the evaluation)
 What new skills do children gain from this program?
 Which skills are children using 3 months from now?
 How satisfied are people with our program?
 How effectively are we reaching underserved populations?
 How supported do our clients feel?
 Are we perpetuating systemic bias or oppression in any way?
Example evaluation questions
 Meditation classes for kids with behavioral problems and their parents:
 Process: Do parents and kids feel welcome at the classes? Do they want to be
there? Are they making friends and feeling supported? Are the teachers actually
teaching the content (fidelity)? Can they teach?
 Outcome: Are kids using the meditation skills to manage anger? Do they have
fewer negative behaviors? Has parental stress levels changed? Over time, is
there a reduction in child abuse rates and/or incarceration rates?
 Cancer screening van:
 Process: do people know about the van? Do they trust the van? Are van working
treating people well?
 Outcome: How many people are screened in the van? Does van screening
increase the overall % of people in the neighborhood who are screened? Does
this increase reduce the screening disparity between PoC and white people?
Goal setting
 Review the goals you identified for your intervention with your neighbor
 Are they realistic?
 Are they closely related to your social problem?
 When you are satisfied with your goals, write them on your worksheet and on
a post it
Process evaluation: is our program going the way we
thought it would?
 Fidelity, and barriers to fidelity (shared decision making and DMH example)
 Basics like are people coming to work? ie Does your research methods
teacher show up? Does she do more than feed you candy? Does class stick to
content or frequently get derailed with dog pictures and the need to unionize
zombies?
 Provider client relationship quality? Trust? Mistrust?
 Equity and human rights? Is your program free of coercion? Are the human
rights of all people being respected? Are there any internal inequities,
structural oppression etc?
Outcome evaluation: is our program meeting the goals
we thought it would meet?
 Learning objectives: can students successfully perform the skills and
competencies listed on the syllabus?
 What is the effect of our program, on the areas we think are important?
 How are these effects measured?
 WHO do you need to talk to / collect data from in order to understand the
effects of your program?
Time frame
 What are the short-term impacts, and on whom? Tend to be immediate process
measures (60% more kids are accessing reading room support / 2/3 of shelter residents
have an effective safety plan)
 What are the intermediate impacts, and on whom? Tend to be process and outcome
measures related to participants (kids gain reading skills and progress by 1 reading level,
children of residents witness fewer instances of DV)
 What are the long term impacts, and on whom? Tend to be outcome measures on
participants and society (reading scores across the school are up, and further long-term
the drop out rate for the school is down, children experience less PTSD, improved school
performance, and further long-term are less likely to perpetrate abuse against their own
intimate partners)
Realistic goals, and proxies
 We probably won’t know if our program for preschool aged children is
enhancing likelihood of going to college any time soon. But we can know if
children tell us they like school, right now or when they get to 1st grade
 Some things are really difficult to measure (happiness, good relationships, self-
determination, cultural competent care). Instead, proxies or proxy indicators are
often used
 taking prenatal vitamins is often used as a proxy for engagement with prenatal
care; days sober is a proxy for success of treatment
Evaluation questions and indicators
 Very tight, operationalized questions
 If X (as defined very specifically by…) happens, we will know that the
program is working the way we think it will
 If Y (as defined very specifically by…) happens, we will know that the
program is meeting the goals we think it should meet
Operationalizing is key
Hard to evaluate
operationalized
 Consistent attendance, defined as once a month for an

“improved”

“responsible”

“proper”

“adequate”

“appropriate”

“reasonable”
uninterrupted period of 12 months
 Demonstrating equal turn-taking in conversations with a
peer
 Reading scores increase to the child’s grade level
 Use of one of the following 5 coping strategies for
managing stress
 10% fewer cigarettes per day/calls to a crisis
hotline/placement changes
indicators
 For each goal, identify at least 1 indicator that this goal is being reached. In other words,
how will you know that you are successful? What information do you need?
 Goals should be





Measurable
Operationalized
Specific
Time-frame
Workshop your indicators with your neighbor and write them on a post-it when you are both
happy with them
Save yourself some work: Standardized instruments
 Exist in many fields, about many questions
 What have researchers used in the past (from your lit review)
 Pros: established way of evaluating a construct of interest
 Cons: may or may not be appropriate for your population, accessible; may or
may not measure what you want it to
 Consider reliability
Measuring your indicators
 What do you need to know to measure your indicators?
 How will you collect information about your indicators? From whom?
 Which stakeholders need to provide information?
 What will you do with the information you collect? How will you
analyze it?
 Workshop your table of information needed with your neighbor
Adding in research design
 Qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods?
 Longitudinal or cross sectional?
 Data collection?
 Comparison group?
 Sampling strategy?
 Sample size?
 Analysis strategy? (inductive vs deductive) Specifics?
Bias and limitations
 Limitations are fine, but must be identified
 Fill out the bias table at home and let me know if you have any
questions
Practice data collection session
Next week
 CITI training (don’t worry if you don’t understand everything. And save
your certificate!!)
 Chapter 2
 Extra credit for posting an article about a research abuse (past or
present) in the piazza area of canvas. If you can’t access piazza, just
email it to me and I’ll post. If I can :>
4 basic types of statistical tests:
Description
•Mean, standard deviation
•Median, Mode
•Percentage, frequency
Correlation
•Pearson’s correlation
Comparison
•Student’s t tests
•Chi-square tests
•ANOVA
•Odds ratios
Prediction
•OLS regression
•Logit regression
Review
 Descriptive statistics describe patterns in your data; does NOT show relationships.
Usually univariate, identifies what’s typical and outliers
 Kinds of description: frequency, central tendency (mean, median, mode); variance
(dispersion); standard deviation
 Correlation-measures relationship between 2 continuous variables. Can be none,
positive, negative, curvilinear
More review
 Statistical significance: p=value, confidence intervals
 T-tests: measure whether there is statistically significant differences in the
MEAN of 2 groups; gives you a p-value and a t-statistic. Higher t-statistics =
more difference between means
 ANOVA-like t-tests but compare the means of multiple groups. Gives you a p-
value and an f-statistic.
Assignment 3
Assumptions
 Your agency just got a grant to serve your specific
population of interest
 Based on your clinical experience and knowledge of the
population, they have asked you to recommend a SPECIFIC
intervention (i.e. wrap around services, peer support, foster
care, guardianship etc)
 In order for the grant to get reviewed, the funder is requiring
a program evaluation of the intervention (NOT the agency as
a whole). You will describe how the intervention should be
evaluated in part 4
Identifying a problem, research question, intervention,
evaluation research design
Social problem
• Has real,
negative
impacts on
individuals and
society
• Is action-able
• Is contexualized
Intervention
• Specifically
designed to address
the social problem
or lessen its
negative impacts in
your population
• Tailored to your
population and
feasible
evaluation
• Concretely
measure if the
intervention is
working
• Does the
intervention
effectively
address or
lessen impacts
of the social
problem?
Midwife example: Prenatal vitamins

Theorized to improve outcomes, like low birth weight but no
real evidence for this

Recorded on birth certificate

Often used as a proxy for access to care, emotional investment
in pregnancy

Can make people feel nauseous

I want my clients to take them because my boss wants me to
encourage my clients to take them and is pissed when I check
no on the birth certificate

NOT TAKING THEM IS NOT A SOCIAL PROBLEM. HOWEVER,
LACK OF ACCESS TO ADEQUATE NUTRITION FOR PREGNANT
PEOPLE IS A SOCIAL PROBLEM-WHY?
Things that are not social problems
 Disability (but ableism is a social problem.
Lack of equitable job opportunities and resultant poverty among people with disabilities is a
social problem)
 Non-compliance (what you want a person or group to do may not be what they themselves want to do; from their
perspective, not complying is potentially supportive, life-saving, preferred etc)
 Personal inconvenience or individual goals, such as me personally losing some weight, cuz I don’t want diabetes
(but lack of access to veggies in my neighborhood is a social problem, because it means that people in my zip code are
collectively less healthy than people in Newton, and inequity is always a social problem)
 Lack of your intervention your intervention is great, but must be focused on reducing a social problem. Not having it
can’t be the social problem
 People. People are never social problems. The marginalization that people experience based on their identity
is a social problem. So people being transgender or Black are not social problems, but the extremely high rate of violence
against Black trans people is a social problem.
 Medical issues/problems. No one likes cancer, but cancer is a medical problem. Like disability, biomedical realities
are not SOCIAL problems, though they may cause suffering (i.e. cancer)
In other words, social problems are:
 Inequitable in some way-people are not being treated the same
 Things/conditions that attempt to limit human dignity, autonomy and human rights
 Replicate larger systems of oppression (sexism/racism/ableism is real in the world,
and in our classrooms)
 Often about access or systems
 Have very real consequences that negatively impact individuals and/or groups
 Are contexualized and avoid generalization (person in the environment)
 For this assignment, are somewhat actionable (i.e. you are not gonna cure cancer,
but you can reduce feelings of isolation among cancer survivors)
Examples
 Prostate cancer screening (public health). People not getting screened as recommended by the ACS by itself
isn’t a social problem-no one likes getting their prostate checked. However, men of color are 4X more likely than their white
counterparts to not get screened, and therefore their cancers are found later and are deadlier. This inequity is a social problem
because early preventable death has huge social impacts.
 Intellectual and developmental disability. Has existed throughout time.
Disability is a normal variation of the
human condition. However, adults with intellectual disabilities face social exclusion, isolation, poverty, unemployment and
preventable negative health outcomes at much higher rates than their non-disabled peers. Children with autism are more often
bullied in school and report higher rates of depression
 Children with behavioral health problems.
See above; normal variation of the human experience. Parents of
children with behavioral health problems face stigma and report less support and more parenting stress than their counterparts
without behavioral health problems. Parenting stress is associated with child abuse. This disparity in child abuse rates is a social
problem because abuse has long lasting impacts on families and communities. Untreated, kids are higher risk than their peers for
being incarcerated, which impacts families and communities and is preventable.
 Non-compliance with treatment plans. What is the goal of the treatment plan? (i.e. prevent involuntary
hospitalization, harm to the person or society)-in this case the consequences of not accessing treatment is the social problem.
Does the person want to treatment? Do they have a choice? Removal of choice is a social problem that disproportionally affects
some groups.
The so what test?
 People of color have less access to cancer screening
 Children with behavioral health conditions tend to have fewer friends
 Masshealth does not cover play therapy. Therefore, low income
children with autism do not have access to play therapy.
Write down your social problem
 What are the direct harms of the social problem?
 Does it pass the so-what test?
 Workshop your social problem with your neighbor
 When you are both satisfied, write the social problems on a post it
Intervention
 This is your recommendation for how your agency should address the
social problem among your population
 Remember, for this assignment, your agency does NOT yet offer the
intervention. So you get to be in charge of how it should be
implemented
 Your intervention should be based on the 3 wheels of evidence based
practice
 Your intervention should have clear, measurable goals that relate
directly to the social problem
50
EBPs in social work: integrate these in your intervention
Interventions should address or lessen the impacts of
the social problem. Examples
 Mobile screening van to increase access to cancer screening in a community of
color to reduce the disparity in screening rates. Measured by increase in # of
screenings approaching those of a white community and fewer cancer deaths
over time
 In-home play therapy with kids with autism to teach them strategies for making
friends and coping with bullying. Measured by increased use of coping
strategies, higher # of friends, higher happiness
 Make sure you have a clear mechanism of action; a path from point A (your
intervention) to point B (your goal) and measurable outcomes
More example of intervention definition and goals,
measurement
 Meditation classes for kids with behavioral health challenges and their
parents to provide support. Measured by decreased parental stress,
increased reported support and use of positive behavior management
techniques by parents, less child abuse over time; and by increased use
of coping skills by kids, less incarceration over time
 Designing an app for people with depression to break up large tasks
into steps and provide reminders. Measured by client satisfaction with
the app, increased feelings of support, self-efficacy for managing life
tasks, despite the biological impacts of depression on motivation,
increased skills, decreased job loss over time
Your intervention
 Name of intervention
 How it addresses the social problem
 What are the goals of this intervention
Workshop this with your neighbor
When you are both satisfied, write the intervention and it’s goals on a
post-it
Still with me?
Evaluation
 How will we know that your intervention is working?
 How will we know it is meeting its goal?
 What needs to be happening for the intervention to have a chance of
meeting its goals? (this is your process evaluation question)
 What is the outcome (goal) that you need to see happening? (this is
your outcome evaluation question)
Example evaluation questions
 Meditation classes for kids with behavioral problems and their parents:
 Process: Do parents and kids feel welcome at the classes? Do they want to be
there? Are they making friends and feeling supported? Are the teachers actually
teaching the content (fidelity)? Can they teach?
 Outcome: Are kids using the meditation skills to manage anger? Do they have
fewer negative behaviors? Has parental stress levels changed? Over time, is
there a reduction in child abuse rates and/or incarceration rates?
 Cancer screening van:
 Process: do people know about the van? Do they trust the van? Are van working
treating people well?
 Outcome: How many people are screened in the van? Does van screening
increase the overall % of people in the neighborhood who are screened? Does
this increase reduce the screening disparity between PoC and white people?
Evaluation questions
 Must relate back to the goals (which in turn relate to the social
problem)
 Write an evaluation question for each goal. How will you know if the
goal is being accomplished?
 Is this a process or outcome evaluation question? Both?
 Workshop with your neighbor. Write your evaluation questions down
on a post-it note when you are satisfied
Study design
 Brainstorm in your groups about HOW to answer your evaluation
questions
 What study design does your question suggest?
 At home, continue to think through study design, using your worksheet
from last week.
 EMAIL me with questions, for phone appointments
Notes on assignment 2
 Overall, excellent and you’re in great shape for assignment 3
 Take credit for your clinical experience-name yourself as a source! Integrate this
experience into your evaluation of studies-you now what you’re doing!
 Operationalize, operationalize, operationalize! (what does “successful” or “it
worked” mean?)
 Please use page #s
 Please proofread
Selecting studies
 Not the first 10 you find!
 You are evaluating YOUR INTERVENTION, not the causes of your social problem. OK to
accept some things as givens (i.e. some kids dislike school, for potentially many reasons,
but this is not super relevant to a program to improve grades)
 Bench science vs social science: the chemistry of how prenatal vitamins are absorbed vs
answering “do prenatal vitamins reduce low birthweight?”
 Be outcome focused!
 Literature reviews and systematic reviews: describe findings but evaluate how the authors
selected and evaluated studies-do you agree or disagree with their methods and analysis?
Strengths and limitations
 Rationale for why the study was done is important but don’t dwell on it. Instead,
focus on integrating findings to answer YOUR research question
 Not agreeing with you is not a limitation-it’s a consideration. Agreeing with you
or supporting your desired intervention is also not a strength-it’s a consideration
 Your task is to evaluate the QUALITY of the evidence, not simply amass it.
Mechanism of action and direction of association
 Which came first?
 Any confounders? (I didn’t take prenatal
vitamin s because I couldn’t afford
them (or food) my baby was low birth
weight?)
 Unless the RESEARCH specifically
evaluates mechanism of action (how it
works) or direction, we just don’t know.
 Avoid assumption
Literature review
 Organizing and synthesizing information
 Don’t go down the rabbit hole
 Audience: intelligent but uninformed about your topic adult (me)
The Brilliant Best Friend System
 For each article, write the MAIN findings/take home messages ONLY on
a separate index card as well as the author’s name so you can track it
later
 Once you’ve prepared your index cards, sort them into piles by theme.
This is a lot like grounded coding
 Ideas that are interesting but beyond the scope of your paper go onto
a post-it and into your ziplock for later. It’s ok to put index cards into
your ziplock, but don’t “disappear” findings that contradict your
intervention-these are important to address.
Example: Managing disclosures of abuse by research
participants with IDD (piles)
 Higher rates of sexual violence against people with disabilities  higher likelihood of
enrolling survivors of violence
 Barriers to reporting abuse
 Barriers to justice for abuse survivors with IDD (and impact on abuse prevalence)
 Research as a safe environment for disclosures (or not)
 Appropriate responses by professionals (not researchers) to disclosures
 Wildcard but important
 Ziplock for later: LGBTQ people w/IDD completely absent from literature; impact of
unaddressed trauma on “functioning”; representation, visibility and feminism/why this
isn’t a feminist issue; historical connection between rape, incest and eugenics movement
Further sorting
 Now that all your literature is in piles, approach each pile and do a further sort. Identify
main themes within each pile
 For each pile and each theme, refer back to your assignment 2 to think about the quality
of the evidence. Are there a lot of studies that agree/show the same thing? Take
advantage of all the work you already did evaluating the quality of the evidence.
 Write a summary paragraph for each pile. Provide an outline of main findings ACROSS
STUDIES and discuss quality of evidence.
 Using a bias chart (see handout) will help you assess quality of the evidence.
 For each pile, is any information missing? (these are the gaps you want to identify)
Example: Combining, evaluating, providing selective
detail, identifying gaps in each pile
 Higher rates of sexual violence against people with disabilities  higher likelihood of
enrolling survivors of violence. COMBINING: There is extensive, high quality evidence
showing that people with disabilities experience much higher rates of sexual violence
victimization (Swango-Wilson, 2009; McCarthy 2011; McCormack et al, 2006; Jones et
al, 2016). SELECTIVE DETAIL: People with intellectual disabilities are even more likely
than their counterparts with other kinds of disabilities to experience sexual violence
(Horner-Johnson & Drum, 2006). We know that people with ID are consensually
participating in research at higher rates than ever before (Ianoco, 2005). GAPS: While
common sense suggests that this higher rate of sexual violence victimization means that
researchers who enroll people with IDD in their studies are more likely to encounter
research participants who have survived sexual violence, this has not yet been studied.
Though some preliminary studies suggest that research participants with IDD view
participatory action research as an opportunity to reduce sexual violence in their
communities (Northrup et al, 2010), we lack understanding of researchers’ role in
responding to sexual violence against people with IDD.
Let’s try it with 2 articles
 Using assignment 2, work with a peer to identify themes/categories (piles) and put
important findings (only) from your first study onto cards
 Use your ziplocks as needed to discard interesting but less relevant information for later
 Switch and help your peer put findings from her first study onto cards and identify
themes/categories for her piles
 Sort your cards into piles
 If you have time, put findings from your second study onto cards and add these findings to
your piles
 Summarize each pile
 Buy an index card sorter (or some envelopes) and continue your sorting at home
Next week:
 Highlight on data collection
 Bring your evaluation questions! We will be designing, doing and evaluating a
brief qualitative interview about your evaluation question topic.
 We will have about 30 minutes for peer review. Bring either your study design
outline or your lit review outline
 Reading:
 Get started on your CITI training for week 11