Читать книгу Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice - Allen Rubin - Страница 55

1  3.1 More than One Type of Hierarchy for More than One Type of EIP Question

2  3.2 Qualitative and Quantitative Studies

3  3.3 Which Types of Research Designs Apply to Which Types of EIP Questions? 3.3.1 What Factors Best Predict Desirable and Undesirable Outcomes? 3.3.2 What Can I Learn about Clients, Service Delivery, and Targets of Intervention from the Experiences of Others? 3.3.3 What Assessment Tool Should Be Used? 3.3.4 What Intervention, Program, or Policy Has the Best Effects? 3.3.5 Matrix of Research Designs by Research Questions 3.3.6 Philosophical Objections to the Foregoing Hierarchy: Fashionable Nonsense Key Chapter Concepts Review Exercises Additional Readings

Now that you understand the importance and nature of the evidence-informed practice (EIP) process, it's time to examine in more detail how to critically appraise the quality of the evidence you'll encounter when engaged in that process. We take a look at that in this chapter and in several chapters that follow. As we do that, you should keep in mind that our aim is not to learn how to find the perfect study. No such study exists. Every study has some limitations. Instead, we examine how to distinguish between evidence that, despite its relatively minor limitations, merits guiding our practice versus more seriously flawed evidence that should be viewed more cautiously.

Chapter 2 alludes to differentiating between studies with reasonable limitations versus studies with fatal flaws. If you appraise many studies, however, you'll soon realize that things aren't black and white. That is, the universe of practice-relevant studies contains not only exemplary studies and fatally flawed ones; there are many shades of gray. You'll want to exercise some degree of caution in being guided by any evidence you find, and the various types of evidence you find will reside along a continuum with regard to how much caution is warranted. Moreover, it will not always be easy to conclude that one intervention has the best evidence. You might encounter some ties for the best. Also, as is discussed in Chapter 2, your practice expertise and client attributes and preferences often will influence your course of action – sometimes even swaying you toward a course based on evidence that is less than best.