Basic Statistics For Social Workers

This revised edition was developed after teaching statistics to undergraduate and graduate social work students for over ten years. The statistical concepts that are necessary for students to know are covered, ranging from simple descriptive statistics such as crosstabs and tabular data up to a limited discussion of multiple regression.

Understanding statistical concepts is essential for social work professionals. It is key to understanding research and reaching evidence-based decisions in your own practice—but that is only the beginning. If you understand statistics, you can determine the best interventions for your clients. You can use new tools to monitor and evaluate the progress of your client or team. You can recognize biased systems masked by complex models and the appearance of scientific neutrality. For social workers, statistics are not just math, they are a critical practice tool. This concise and approachable introduction to statistics limits its coverage to the concepts most relevant to social workers. Statistics in Social Work guides students through concepts and procedures from descriptive statistics and correlation to hypothesis testing and inferential statistics. Besides presenting key concepts, it focuses on real-world examples that students will encounter in a social work practice. Using concrete illustrations from a variety of potential concentrations and populations, Amy Batchelor creates clear connections between theory and practice—and demonstrates the important contributions statistics can make to evidence-based and rigorous social work practice.

A reader-friendly approach to statistics in social work practice. Statistics for Social Workers, 9/e familiarizes students with statistical tests and analyses that are most likely to be encountered by social work researchers and practitioners. This reader-friendly title emphasizes the conceptual underpinning of statistical analyses, keeping mathematics and complicated formulae to a minimum. Readers require no prior knowledge of statistics and only basic mathematical competence.

A core statistics text that emphasizes logical inquiry, not math Basic Statistics for Social Research teaches core general statistical concepts and methods that all social science majors must master to understand (and do) social research. Its use of mathematics and theory are deliberately limited, as the authors focus on the use of concepts and tools of statistics in the analysis of social science data, rather than on the mathematical and computational aspects. Research questions and applications are taken from a wide variety of subfields in sociology, and each chapter is organized around one or more general ideas that are explained at its beginning and then applied in increasing detail in the body of the text. Each chapter contains instructive features to aid students in understanding and mastering the various statistical approaches presented in the book, including: Learning objectives Check quizzes after many sections and an answer key at the end of the chapter Summary Key terms End-of-chapter exercises SPSS exercises (in select chapters) Ancillary materials for both the student and the instructor are available and include a test bank for instructors and downloadable video tutorials for students.

Using real social work examples written specifically to ally student fears Research and Statistics for Social Workers brings research and statistics together bridging the gap to practice. This book covers - conceptualization, ethics, cultural competence, design, qualitative research, individual and program evaluation as well as nonparametric and parametric statistical tests. The tests are explained narratively, mathematically as well as with a comprehensive step-by-step, fully illustrated SPSS computer analysis of social work data.

The complexity of social problems necessitates that social work researchers understand and apply multivariate statistical methods in their investigations. In this pocket guide, the authors introduce readers to three of the more frequently used multivariate methods in social work research with an emphasis on basic statistics. The primary aim is to prepare entry-level doctoral students and early career social work researchers in the use of multivariate methods by providing an easy-to-understand presentation, building on the basic statistics that inform them. The pocket guide begins with a review of basic statistics, hypothesis testing with inferential statistics, and bivariate analytic methods. Subsequent sections describe bivariate and multiple linear regression analyses, one-way and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (ANCOVA), and path analysis. In each chapter, the authors introduce the various basic statistical procedures by providing definitions, formulas, descriptions of the underlying logic and assumptions of each procedure, and examples of how they have been used in social work research literature, particularly with diverse populations. They also explain estimation procedures and how to interpret results. The multivariate chapters conclude with brief step-by-step instructions for conducting multiple regression analysis and one-way ANOVA in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), and path analysis in Amos, using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88). As an additional supplement, the book offers a companion website that provides more detailed instructions, as well as data sets and worked examples.

Presents a self-analysis of social work in society to measure the demand for social work and the volume of service. Also looks at the comparison between statistics of other public services.