Research and Service in Social Work: Conditions for a Stable Union.

Social work deals with the interaction of a variety of factors: the client or participants in a program, the professional worker, and the environment, including both the agency setting and life in a community. To do "basic" research, the goal of which is related to the impact of the service given to individuals, is thus no small order. The first step would appear to be to describe what the service consists of, its goals and its assumptions, as well as the theoretical basis for these assumptions. This first step clearly involves definitions. With this substantive knowledge as a base, one is prepared to move on to the statement of theories as to the interaction of the relevant factors. These theories must in turn be stated or broken down into researchable terms. The obstacles in doing such research are of two types (a) those arising from the nature of the subject matter of study, for example, human behavior; and (b) those arising from the situation in which most of the research must be done, for example, an operating service agency.