Finding and Using Sources as a Working Social Worker: How to evaluate sources

Learn how to find open access and proprietary sources as a Columbia School of Social Work graduate.

Evaluating as a Social Worker

NASW Code of Ethics - How does this inform how we use and evaluate sources as social workers?

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) states that "well designed social work research can contribute significantly to the development and refinement of effective practice approaches at all levels and in all settings." 

Strategies for evaluation

The work that we do as social workers is based on the premise that to make the best decisions for our clients, organizations, or researchers, we must engage with the best evidence and use credible or reputable sources. To do this, we must engage in Evidence-Based Practice (EBP).

EBP involves integrating the highest-quality evidence from literature, a social worker's expertise and experiences, and clients’ lived experience, preferences, and information about their environment and situation to make the best decisions overall. While your client may change, your method of source collection will only vary slightly on a case-by-case basis.

To carry out EBP effectively, ask yourself the following questions from Sweetman, Badiee, and Creswell (2010) as you look for and start to evaluate sources:

a) Do the authors openly reference a problem in a community of concern?

b) Do the authors openly declare a theoretical lens?

c) Were the research questions (or purposes) written with an advocacy stance?

d) Did the literature review include discussions of diversity and oppression?

e) Did the authors discuss appropriate labeling of the participants?

f) Did data collection and outcomes benefit the community?

g) Did the participants initiate the research, and/or were they actively engaged in the project?

h) Did the results elucidate power relationships?

i) Did the results facilitate social change?

j) Did the authors explicitly state their use of a transformative framework? (pp. 442-443)

Source: Sweetman, D., Badiee, M., & Creswell, J. W. (2010). Use of the transformative framework in mixed methods studies. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 441-454. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410364610

The Power of Authority in Sources 

There are several ways of knowing when it comes to gathering sources. You want to be mindful as you are gathering materials that the client is for the most part always the expert on their situation and experiences. This can sometimes mean that you will have to traverse away from using traditional (i.e., Western) ways of knowing and will have to embrace Indigenous or more culturally specific ways of knowing.

This deviation away from only using Western forms of knowledge is important because “researchers that only use Western markers of authority to evaluate information will find a one-sided perspective." It is important if you are using traditional "academic sources" that you remember that these types of sources "are most often written about [BIPOC[ communities rather than by them."

"Reliance on Western authority effectively silences the voices of indigenous, [Black, and other people of color] who made the artwork under study, who used it in their rituals or daily life, and whose traditions that art belongs to. Under this Western hegemony, interpretation of native cultures is denied to members of that culture and reserved for those with Western authority" (Watkins, 2017, p. 14).

 

SourcesWatkins, A. (2017). Teaching Inclusive Authorities: Indigenous Ways of Knowing and the Framework for Information Literacy in Native Art. In Godbey, S., Wainscott, S.B., & Goodman, X. (Eds.), Disciplinary applications of information literacy threshold concepts, (pp. 13-24). Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries.

Algorithms - Information seeking you

Algorithms are central to how we search, retrieve, present, communicate, and seek information in our everyday and online lives. Embedded in these codes are political, technical, cultural, and social undertones that can impact how we are decision-making and seeking information to help our clients.

These online codes can drive us to see only one side of a problem. If we are not careful, they can also sway us to forego our training and the beliefs we have always held since we are often inundated with alternative facts that appear logical and ethical. However, as you evaluate sources, you want to be mindful that your end goal is to help real people deal with real situations. 

To combat one-sided sources and algorithms:

- Develop a network of trusted publishers, experts, and platforms

- Double check that the information you are getting is from sources you trust.

- Read, watch, or listen to multiple sources on the topic you're researching.

- Check-in with your client or organization to get information from a primary source.

- Remember to engage in ethical and moral practices!

- Learn more about how algorithms work to prepare you as you start to research.

Resources:

Websites

SnopesA non-bias website to fact check information

Connected Papers - A site that allows you to find articles and visually see how they the source you found relates to other research in the field.

Unpaywall - To get access to Open Access (OA) versions of a journal article, you can add this extension to your Google Chrome window, and it will alert you if there is an (OA) version of the article you want.

Books

Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble

How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control: A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence by Kartik Hosanagar

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Crow Code by Ruha Benjamin

Online Resources

Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/02/08/code-dependent-pros-and-cons-of-the-algorithm-age/

Humans rely more on algorithms than social influence as a task becomes more difficult – Bogert, Schecter, & Watson (2021):  Bogert, Schecter, A., & Watson, R. T. (2021). Humans rely more on algorithms than social influence as a task becomes more difficult. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 8028–8028. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87480-9

Who made that Decision: You or An Algorithm? – Knowledge at Wharton Staff: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/algorithms-decision-making/