Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice. Allen Rubin

not always clear how to apply what you learn from research in your practice. We believe that these practical challenges are more commonly on the minds of practitioners. The question is no longer whether or not we should engage in EIP, but rather how to successfully engage in EIP. Therefore, we have focused on more practical issues throughout this book by providing tools and resources that we believe will help you most efficiently use your time to identify, evaluate, and apply research findings in practice.

KEY CHAPTER CONCEPTS

       A prominent misconception is that EIP implies an overly restrictive hierarchy of evidence – one that only values evidence produced by tightly controlled quantitative studies employing experimental designs.

       EIP does not imply a black-and-white evidentiary standard in which evidence has no value unless it is based on experiments.

       Not all EIP questions imply the need to make causal inferences about intervention effects.

       Different research hierarchies are needed for different types of EIP questions.

       Qualitative studies tend to employ flexible designs and subjective methods – often with small samples of research participants – in seeking to generate tentative new insights, deep understandings, and theoretically rich observations.

       Quantitative studies put more emphasis on producing precise and objective statistical findings that can be generalized to populations or on designs with logical arrangements that are geared to testing hypotheses about whether predicted causes really produce predicted effects.

       Although some scholars who favor qualitative inquiry misperceive EIP as devaluing qualitative research, countless specific kinds of EIP questions would be applicable to a hierarchy where qualitative studies might reside at the top.

       Correlational and qualitative studies can be useful in identifying factors that predict desirable or undesirable outcomes.

       Qualitative studies would reside at the top of a research hierarchy for EIP questions that ask: “What can I learn about clients, service delivery, and targets of intervention from the experiences of others?”

       Various kinds of studies can be used to answer the question: “What assessment tool should be used?”

       When seeking evidence about whether a particular intervention – and not some alternative explanation – is the real cause of a particular outcome, experiments are near the top of the hierarchy of research designs, followed by quasi-experiments with relatively low vulnerabilities to selectivity biases.

       Because of the importance of replication, systematic reviews and meta-analyses – which attempt to synthesize and develop conclusions from the diverse studies and their disparate findings – reside above experiments on the evidentiary hierarchy for EIP questions about effectiveness.

       Some postmodern philosophies and political voices dismiss the value of using experimental design logic and unbiased, validated measures as ways to assess the effects of interventions. They argue that social reality is unknowable and that objectivity is impossible and not worth pursuing. Critics have portrayed such philosophies as an example of an all-or-nothing thinking problem that is logically incoherent.

REVIEW EXERCISES

      1 Suppose Intervention A appears to be the most effective way to engage Cuban American parents in the family component of a substance abuse treatment program for adolescents in Miami. You administer a similar program for first-generation Mexican American teens in Laredo, Texas, and wonder whether Intervention A might be the most effective way to engage their parents in your family component. Formulate four EIP questions pertaining to your concern, each of which implies a different type of research hierarchy.

      2 A husband and wife come to you for marital therapy. The wife complains that the husband is abusive to her and their children. The husband disagrees. He argues that his behavior is just a normal and acceptable reaction to his wife's provocations. The wife adamantly denies that she provokes his behavior and insists that it is abusive. Thus, each has a different view of social reality. As their therapist, you have your own view of their social reality. Explain why each of you can have your own separate takes on social reality without that necessarily implying that there is no such thing as an objective social reality that is worth attempting to assess in an objective fashion. Explain why rejecting the view of an objective social reality in this example would be illogical and potentially harmful.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

      1 Norcross, J. C., Beutler, L. E., & Levant, R. F. (Eds.). (2006). Evidence-based practices in mental health: Debate and dialogue on the fundamental questions. American Psychological Association.

      2 Sokal, A., & Bricmont, J. (1998). Fashionable nonsense: Postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science. Picador.

PART 2 CRITICALLY APPRAISING STUDIES FOR EIP QUESTIONS ABOUT INTERVENTION EFFECTIVENESS