Describe the professional setting you’ll be working with. What is the target population, what are the issue addressed in that setting, what are the interventions applied there, etcetera?

Designing an Experimental or Quasi-Experimental Study

Remember that experimental research assesses the outcomes or effectiveness of an intervention. There are many different designs, all differing from each other based on use of randomization or matching, inclusion of multiple time points, use of control groups or alternative treatment designs, and other factors such as sample size. Your task is to design an experimental or quasi-experimental study that addresses a question relevant to a social work practice setting, and that could be carried out in that setting.

Step 1: Choose your practice setting and practice problem.

Describe the professional setting you’ll be working with. What is the target population, what are the issue addressed in that setting, what are the interventions applied there, etcetera? Brainstorm some practice problems presented by the client population or service landscape at the agency, and end by identifying the practice problem you’d like to address using an experimental method.

Step 2. Write your research question.

Write your research question, integrating the various components of the PICOT template as relevant (population, intervention, control, outcome, time). Reference the example below from our PowerPoints for guidance, noting that you may or may not include all pieces of the template depending on the design you choose. (Some designs do not include a control group or multiple time points and might drop the C and/or T.)

Step 3: Write your hypothesis

Remember that a hypothesis is an educated guess, presented in the form of a statement that specifies what you expect to see in answer to your research question. Your hypothesis must be testable using an experimental design.

Step 4: Justify your hypothesis

Our hypotheses must be educated guesses, which is the scholarly realm means that they must be grounded in the literature. Your own professional expertise also matters in the EBP process and so therefore can be integrated as well. Please justify your hypothesis. Why do you expect to see the outcome you’ve predicted?

Step 5: Identify your variables

What is your independent variable? What is your dependent variable? Do you have any moderators or mediators. How about control variables that need to be held constant so as to isolate the true effect of the independent variable. Please list your variables by variable type.

Step 6: How will you measure your variables?

We will delve far further into measurement that we have in a matter of weeks, but at this point, it is important to note that in order to assess the outcome of an intervention, you must collect data to measure each of your variables at each of your time points. Please present a general plan as to how you will quantify your variables in order to test your hypotheses.

Step 7: Describe Your Design

There’s more involved in the research process that we’ll get to in time. For the purposes of our current focus, though, let’s spend the rest of our time on envisioning an experimental design that we could use to address our research questions. Choose an experimental or quasi-experimental design, and describe how you would carry it out in your unique practice setting.

Step 8: Evaluate your proposed design.

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your proposed study design, considering such factors as internal validity, external validity, feasibility (e.g., cost, staffing, time, access to and retention of sample, acceptability of the study to the setting, acceptability of the intervention to the client sample), and ethical concerns.

Step 9: Planning for barriers

Identify any challenges you would anticipate with this study in this setting, and create a plan for managing these challenges.

** Review attached files for required information **
Please use the information on the files that have been provided

research questions:

How does participation in competitive extracurricular activities impact the emotional development and social skills of children under 12 years of age.

What is the relationship between participation in competitive extracurricular activities and the emotional development and social skills of children under 12 years of age.

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