SOCW6311 WK 7 WALDEN UNIVERSITY SW Practice Res II

Selection of a Statistical Analysis Approach

Over the years in school classes, work teams, and other group settings, you may have participated in get-to-know-you activities, also called icebreakers or team builders. These activities help members learn one anothers names and generate a sense of inclusion and belonging early in the life span of the group. Social workers, too, use icebreakers to create cohesion among the members of a treatment group. Icebreakers can take many formsfrom question and answer, to games and riddles, to memory exercises, to movement, pair work, and more.

Social workers must carefully align the icebreaker to the group and ensure it is appropriate for the age, focus, and attention of its members. Treatment groups may also include involuntary members who may be unhappy about their requirement to attend. How might these members react to such an icebreaker, and how might you use motivational interviewing to draw them out and engage them in a meaningful way?

In this Discussion, you assume the role of a social worker starting an initial group session and presenting an icebreaker activity.

To Prepare

• Review the Learning Resources on analyzing evaluation data, threats to internal validity, and statistics.
• Access the Social Work Case Studies media and navigate to the Chi-Square case study.
• As you review the case, consider the confounding variablesthat is, factors that might explain the difference between those in the program and those waiting to enter the program.

SUBMIT

• Post a brief outline of the case study and consider the conclusion that the vocational rehabilitation intervention program may be effective at promoting full-time employment.
• What statistical information shows whether the program was effective (or not)?
• Review the factors that limit the internal validity of a study (history, maturation, testing, instrumentation, statistical regression, selection bias, and attrition).
• Select and explain which of these factors might limit the ability to draw conclusions regarding cause-and-effect relationships.

Resources

• Dudley, J. R. (2020). Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  • Chapter 10, Analyzing Evaluation Data (pp. 255275)

• Flannelly, K. J., Flannelly, L. T., & Jankowski, K. R. B. (2018). . Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy , 24 (3), 107130.

• Walden University, LLC. (2022). [Interactive media].
  • Navigate to the Chi-Square case study.