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Agency-based research utilization in a residential child care setting
Abstract
A study contends that the social agency or human service organization has become the site of research consumption and application, due to new practice-research models, computerization and integrated information systems, and the importance of quality assurance monitoring strategies. The discussion describes an agency-based effort to promote research utilization, using data and experience from work at Boysville of Michigan, a family treatment and residential child care setting for children and adolescents. Possible causes for practitioner nonutilization of research were incorporated into an intervention strategy for promoting research utilization within Boysville, and a set of empirical measures for studying variations in research utilization by its staff. In analyzing the results of the strategy, particular attention was given to staff attitudes toward research, their perceptions of utilization facilitators, and the effects of agency-based training in the application of research data to clinical decision-making. The findings indicated a moderately high reported utilization of the research products of the system, a less than positive perception of agency efforts to facilitate utilization, but increasingly positive attitudes toward research since the system was introduced.
Journal
(1988)
vol12
no4
pages61-80
Categories
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Classification and Research
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Research Methods
