Decision Making in Social Work Supervision - Phase One
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Optimising the Quality of Social Work Decisions in Supervision
IRAS ID
182611
Contact name
A Jenkinson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Kingston University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Social workers make decisions about people’s well-being that can be life changing. Decisions are often made by social workers and supervisors together in supervision to assure their quality. However, there is little evidence that supervision has an impact on decision quality.
This research will address this knowledge gap by providing evidence of the impact of supervision on decision quality. The findings will assist in optimising the quality of decisions taken in supervision. The research is funded by the National Institute for Health’s (NIHR) School of Social Care Research.
The research has two phases.
The first phase is developmental. We will produce a set of quality standards for social work decision making, a measurement scale for assessing decision quality against these standards, and a set of fictional but realistic case scenarios about which social workers will be asked to formulate judgments and decisions in phase two.
The second phase is experimental. We will undertake three experiments. In each, social workers will be asked to make judgments and decisions about the case scenarios in different supervision conditions. The quality of the judgments and decisions will be assessed against the decision quality standards using the measurement scale developed in phase one. The possible effects of the different supervision conditions on decision quality will be evaluated to determine which conditions contribute most and least to effective decision making.
Ethical approval is sought for phase one only at this stage. In this initial work we will develop our research materials (scenarios, standards and measurement scale) in consultation with up to 12 registered social workers. Up to three meetings will be held in a central London venue, during which we will consult with social workers on the validity, reliability and usability of the standards, scale and scenarios.
Ethical approval will be sought for phase two subsequently.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
15/IEC08/0037
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jun 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion