Major speech Elaine Sharland

“When in Rome? Developing Systematic Review for Social Work in Localised and Globalised Contexts”.

Prof. Elaine Sharland will be speaking about how systematic reviews can help us avoid the pitfalls of undercontextualising and overcontextualising. Systematic reviews are described as bringing together the results of individual pieces of research to achieve a synthesis for the good of policy making and practice.

Systematic reviews follow a rigorous process of research search and appraisal around a clearly defined research question. Systematic reviews are of both a quantitative and qualitative nature. They can be statistical, but also narrative or thematic analysis. An example are the SCIE knowledge reviews at the university of Sussex, which draws on the EPPI model (Rutter et al., 2010). The Cochrane Collaboration and Campbell Collaboration have been the main institutions who have been performing systematic reviews in the fields of medicine and social interventions respectively. A hierarchy of evidence prioritises RCT’s over more qualitative methods in these organisations, which excludes much of the European body of social work research.

An overview of the polemics about EBP is provided, and Hammersley (2001), MacLure (2004), Webb (2006), Oakley (2006), and Bruce Thyer (2010) are quoted.

Elaine will attempt to answer the question of how systematic reviews might work for Social Work. How do we avoid undercontextualisation and overcontextualisation alike.

Elaine states that social work deals with “wicked” problems, as they are complex and multilayered, as well as located in the interface between the individual and the social. The nature of the research field is illustrated by referencing Shaw and Norton (2007) and Shaw et al (2010). Purposes, contexts, research methods and domains differ considerably within our research field. Elaine differentiates between inner science (e.g. Epistemic norms, which are accepted but debated on the level of paradigms) and outer science (relevance and accessibility for the context which it is intended to address). Moving on to how systematic reviews might work for social work. Systematic reviews attempt to create an overview by being tight and fixed, whereas researched social work problems and interventions are rarely bounded. Research worthy to be included should be inclusive according to Elaine. The strict RCT approach to systematic review is said to just not useful for social work. Proponents of EBP are increasingly recognise that good qualitative research should be able to become part of a systematic review on an equal footing with other types of research. Appraisal criteria should take into account inner science and outer science criteria. Quality criteria for qualitative research are heterogenous (Harden, 2007). They tend to pay more attention to inner science than to outer science.

Proposals to move quality appraisal forward are then made. It is stated that pitfalls of criteriology should be avoided (no mechanistic application of criteria), and that outer science should increasingly enter into or criteria. We will also need to “dig for nuggets”, as “bad” research can lead to “good” evidence. Research quality can only be determined through synthesis.

It is proposed that realist synthesis (Pawson, 2002, 2003) could offer an alternative, as it aims to uncover mechanisms of change. Synthesis should then be theory led through which messages become transferable from situated contexts through generalisation to theory. This would privilege inner and outer science alike.

Finally, it is remarked that we need flexible modes of systematic reviews which correspond with the types and quality of social work research, and with situated social work contexts.