Month: February 2020

Book review : Critical Thinking

This review relates to Critical Thinking by Tom Chatfield. Available here on Amazon

Introduction

I bought this book a couple of years ago and it had been sitting on my bookshelf until recently. In my desire to move away from books and articles written from my discipline, I started to read with an idea that I probably knew what I was going to be told. I was fairly confident I’d had experience of critical thinking and analysis, after all, how can I do my day job without it? The time spent reading though, was invaluable and has adjusted many of my assumptions – and after all, isn’t that what critical thinking is about?

Context

This book is written by Tom Chatfield, whose bio describes him as a ‘writer, broadcaster and tech philosopher’. I came to this book having read another of his books, (How to Thrive in a Digital Age). I bought the book when I was having a bit of a crisis of confidence at work but put it on the shelf and only recently returned to it.

It is a book which is aimed at a student market, although definitely not exclusively so, but there are references to literature searches, writing including academic writing specifically and understanding academic papers and research which marks the primary audience but there is a sufficient breadth and style that moves beyond that.

The book is written with the intention of being easy to understand. It is not one to come to that expects any prior knowledge of philosophy (because after all, critical thinking is pretty much applied philosophy) or reading about reading, writing and thinking critically. It is not a book for the Kindle, either. It is designed as a workbook, with exercises, room to scribble in margins and notes added with liberal use of illustration and bullet points.

With my new energy for mindmapping as a form of note-taking, I even mind-mapped a few chapters in the margins but I did transfer one of them electronically to give an idea of what I did – it might be small but it relates to different types of fallacy in thinking – and it was written as I took notes from this book.

Summary

So what does the book say? It is divided into two sections. Part 1 is called ‘The Art and Science of Being Reasonable’ and it is occupied primarily with logic and forming arguments where argument means a conclusion based on reasons. It provides a gentle introduction to philosophy for people who may not realise that is what it is doing but it is a useful reminder that there are ways to form arguments that are strong and to be wary of statements without reason. The key areas covered include the ways that deductive (where conclusion is based on factual premises and is therefore, certain), inductive (where conclusion is based on most likely outcome and evidence needs to be examined, for example around probability and sample sizes) and abductive arguments (where conclusion is based on theories and is the most likely conclusion) are formed and the place for each of them as well as what lies behind them.

The second part of the book is called ‘Being Reasonable in an Unreasonable World’. This part covers the use of rhetoric including specific rhetorical devices which might try to pull emotion from fact, like the use (or rather, misuse) of jargon to alienate and complicate or exclude, use of euphemisms or hyperbole to add emotion to an argument. This is not to say there isn’t a place for rhetoric, it is useful to know, but it is also useful to be able to spot.

The book also covers spotting fallacious arguments (see the mindmap above because this was the section I used to take notes from!) and being aware of the bias in arguments presented, including confirmation bias, where you seek views that agree, but also ‘survivorship’ bias which tends to mean that success is more commonly reported because it is the history that ‘survives’ and linked to this is publication bias where journals may be more likely to publish research which has positive results. There was a lot more to it than I’m able to list but some key points about being aware of how statistics can be used to say lots of things in different ways and the choice of what data to include or exclude can display biases.

The writer concludes with a chapter, unsurprisingly, given his background in technology, specifically about ‘thinking critically about technology’. Starting with the different between data, information and knowledge and looking at how, having access to far more knowledge at our fingertips, can expose us to ‘false news’ and echo chambers which we need to have an increasing awareness of.

There are a couple of chapters that specifically draw the learning within the book to an academic context, looking at how to find information and writing up information in a cohesive way, to ensure arguments have premises and are not confused with opinion.

Reflections

The book is eminently readable. There is a lot in it and it can feel like you want to highlight everything to come back to but it is also flows easily and presents the information in an interesting way.

I found myself distracted, at times, by some of the typeface and the notes in the margin. It may be that I am slightly (cough) older than the average reader and I know it’s done to make the book more ‘fun’ but I would have preferred using the space for my own notes. Saying that, I love having large margins that are large enough to make notes in and I thought the exercises presented were very helpful. I can’t say I worked through them all but I can see it being a really useful space.

The book reminded me of the core essentials of pulling back arguments and determining how they are constructed when I read books and journal articles but also newspaper articles, blog posts and websites. It’s a helpful way of thinking and while I would have liked to have thought I was a critical thinker, beforehand, I think I would be better at it now for having read the book.

It is a clearly presented introduction to a subject that can put people off or if you are a student thinking ‘I need to read up on my subject, I don’t have time to read a book about critical thinking’, it is something that can save a lot of time.

It may be basic if you have a good understanding of the topic and it is written for people coming at it from a beginners level. Saying that, I like simple writing styles. I’ve studied logic at undergraduate level and honestly, I prefer it when it’s simply presented.

Use in practice

This is one of the more practically and immediately useful books I have read. Already I am thinking about reports I write at work where I am asked to give an opinion (social circumstances reports, I’m thinking of you) and ensuring that I provide evidence in the form of clear argument rather than lists of facts.

In terms of my academic writing, it has helped focus me on how I identify good papers, in particular from poorer ones. Recently I have read a few papers that I have instinctively thought ‘how on earth did this get published in a respectable journal’ and this book has given me the language to determine why I was uneasy with them (law of small numbers – where small data sets are more likely to provide extreme variation and fundamental attribution error where outcomes are disproportionately linked to an event!).

I’m going to practice using the language of the book, which is the language of logic to identify fallacies where I spot them so in that sense, this is immediately useful and used.

Conclusion

This book was a pleasure to read and I was genuinely sorry to finish it. That doesn’t happen often with me so in conclusion, that has to be a strong recommendation. I’d definitely recommend the paperback rather than the kindle because I’m not sure how the formatting would work electronically and it’s the kind of book that needs to be flicked through rather than read from beginning to end (although that is the way I covered it).

It reminded me how important philosophy is, to social work. Not just the ethics part which is most commonly covered at university, but the logic and the rhetoric as well.

Learning about Learning

This week, on a day off from the full-time work, I took a day back at the university to attend a couple of workshops they set up for postgraduate students. I was wondering beforehand if this had been something of a luxury. Unlike my previous job, I don’t get any days off for study leave (welcome to the NHS!) anymore so all the leave I take is annual leave and I am a bit short on AL this year due to the changes in job where the dates didn’t quite line up.

So despite my reservations about whether it would be better use to sit in a library, I went to the workshops to learn with a mixed group of doctoral and post-doctoral students about learning techniques.

The first session was about speed reading, or as the tutor told us, repeatedly, better reading. He was right. Noone really teaches you how to read effectively after the first few years in primary school unless there is a specific reason or at least, that was my experience.

We started with some fun activities, testing our reading speed and the importance of understanding that memorising (as we did in reading comprehension tests at school) and understanding is vast.

In some ways, I expected a lot of what he said to be obvious, but it really wasn’t. I can say that I have a few more ideas about how I read (and have been reading) and how I can be more effective in reading through information more quickly but also making sure the notes I make about what I read are better (this might be counter intuitive about learning in a class about reading but it is what I took from it).

While I came away eager to practice new techniques, I thought that it was probably, for me, anyway more about reading efficiency than reading speed. How can I get the information I need from a text in the quickest way that ensures I remember and record (if necessary) what I have read. One of the key techniques that I want to practise is about extending my peripheral vision when I read so that I read more ‘at once’. This was something I hadn’t considered before learning about it.

The second half of the day was about mind-mapping. I probably wouldn’t have signed up for it if it hadn’t followed on from the morning because the speed reading was what I had been most interested in.

I’ve tried a bit of mind-mapping, particularly on software (iThoughts if anyone is interested – I’ve tried a few and that’s my favourite) and thought if there is a ‘way’ to mindmap, it might be useful to know. I used it when I wanted to gather my ideas in a different way.

Fortunately, this is how it was presented to us. This isn’t a panacea. It won’t make you cleverer or quicker or more imaginative, but it is a tool that can help with taking notes and recording information in a clearer way. I tend to doodle a lot and make notes with lots of arrows in them, so it could be the method I didn’t realise I wanted. I hadn’t thought of mindmapping to summarise or take notes.

Having attended the course, I’d say that learning from someone who knows, is useful. I have tried any number of mindmaps since the training. The next morning, at work, I arrived and drew my day’s to do list as a mindmap (which I then had to explain to a colleague who was intrigued), it took no longer but it was visually more pleasing – although that is not the point.

What has been more useful were my brief attempts, over the weekend, to link up the speed reading and mindmapping and creating a ‘mindmap’ notes of book chapters and articles. I’ve been able to jot mini-mindmaps after chapters of a book I am reading, (have been trying to speed read!) so I remember what the key points are. I’ve used post-its or pieces of printer paper which I have then popped into the book at the required chapter or scanned and saved with the paper on Mendeley entries. For the first few I’ve done, I’ve written some more conventional notes afterwards, using the mindmaps to test if I have learnt or remembered more or at least, noted down the key useful points and I think it may work as a technique when I need to remember things I have read.

I’m still at the early stages of this. I am mindmapping everything. As we were told though, it’s often about practise and getting better at it. It may not change the way I learn and think in the long run, but it was an enjoyable session that helped me think differently. And I think it helped when I went back to work as well because this isn’t just about helping my learning at university but also at work.

Even if I don’t persist with mind-mapping as a note-taking technique, at least I know a bit more about it and why I would reject it which is a better place to be. As for the speed-reading, I can’t see any situation that won’t be useful so I’m going to continue to practice and if I do get better, I might write up more about the specific techniques. It is good to have a day out from the usual though, particularly if we are able to challenge our own thinking.

Paper Review: Ethical considerations in social work research

Ana M. Sobočan, Teresa Bertotti & Kim Strom-Gottfried (2019) Ethical considerations in social work research, European Journal of Social Work, 22:5, 805-818, DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2018.1544117

Introduction

This is a paper whose aim is to place is looking at the ethics of research through a specific social work lens. What is it that might make social work research and the ethical considerations of it, different from other types of research in other fields. Although there are books devoted specifically to this (Morris, 2006, D’Cruz and Jones, 2013, Hardwick and Worsley 2011 and many others) it is a useful introduction to some of the key tensions and considerations which exist in the field. Not least, for me anyway, because it comes from a perspective of authors from Slovenia, Trento and the United States where most of my reading has been UK-based.

Methodology

In terms of methods, this is more of a piece combining literature relating to research ethics with some of the literature about social work research. Referencing BASW (British Association of Social Work) Code of Ethics and the IFSW (International Federation of Social Workers) Statement of Principles, it pulls apart from of the considerations that make social work research ethics different from research ethics, by adding an additional layer of professional responsibilities and values rather than by removing anything.

It does this with two case study examples illustrating where the values of a social worker as a professional may be at odds with the purity of the research process. In these two examples they are focusing on two particular ‘research values’ and explaining where the conflict could potentially arise.

Context

The examples they give as ‘case study’ type relate to the principle of nonmaleficience. This basically means that the researcher should not cause any harm, obviously not intentionally but unintentionally as well through their research with people. The authors draw on this fundamental principle of bioethics where there may be medical treatments involved and extrapolate to social work where there may be ‘harm’ that isn’t easily identified.

In their example, they refer to research in the field of child protection where there were potentially sensitive issues discussed but the research was around understanding the quality of services delivered from the view of families who received services.

This research was carried out in a focus group and this presented some stresses regarding the role of confidentiality and the use of a group setting where sensitive issues were discussed.

The dilemma identified stemmed from the formation of self-help and support group between people who were the ‘research subjects’ during the focus groups. Should the professional stop these conversations where those who were using services were providing advice and support to each other, talking about how they ‘managed’ poor services and provided useful help within the group? Or should they return the conversation and the group focus to the research questions?

The researcher in question moved the focus back to their research and away from the emergent discussion about how participants may help each other, but the authors leave us with the question about whether this was a misuse of power on the part of the researcher who is also a social worker?

The second case given relates to a social worker/researcher whose roles potentially overlap. On the one hand, the social worker is the ‘agent of change’ but the role as a researcher is to document what is.

In this case, the social worker was researching same-gender parented families. The researcher had personal experiences in this area which is what had led them to the research and in order to aid conversation and discussion, told the participants, so they knew they were speaking to someone who intrinsically supported their families and relationships.

In some conversations, the researcher, on listening to some of the challenges and discrimination faced, was faced with the dilemma of whether they advocate for the families who are ‘research subjects’. Would that change the focus of the research so that some stories became stronger if they were to give a view that might help the family?

These were some of the dilemmas that the authors saw as stemming from the dual role of social work practitioner and researcher.

Key Learning

By presenting case studies, the authors invite us to ask questions about potential ethical dilemmas across social work research, and to explore how these issues may be addressed in writing about social work research, for example, in papers that are published. How do we establish that the research has benefited the participants and social work itself rather than provided a professional stepping stone for the author? This is a useful challenge to reflect on as I make my way through research in the field.

The authors looked at the role of social justice in social work research which had taken place and how often it may have been referenced in studies over the years. They are particularly interested in the role that virtue ethics may play in research with researchers, particularly in social work, exploring their motivations behind the research and ensuring the research is beneficial to participants who are not seen as a means to an end.

The paper asks that universities who train novice researchers from the first steps, engage with ethics by ensuring the language is ethics is central because language feeds attitude.

They present models they have considered about how to review ethical impact, particularly looking at some generic ones which they transpose to a social work framework. The authors then demonstrate how the dilemmas presented in the case studies might work through these frameworks.

Reflection

I enjoyed reading this paper as it was clearly written and easy to follow. I enjoy reading about ethics anyway and placing research ethics within a social work context was immediately useful to me so it may have made my perception of interest stronger.

Some of the issues raised about ethics are specific to research. How do we choose research and subjects? Sometimes this is an individual decision, sometimes it relates to funding availability but it should have a purpose that serves the aims of the profession in terms of growth.

I enjoyed the case study examples as well, they were easy to follow in any context and not specific to social work in a particular area but they made the examples clearer.

Use in Practice

As I am increasingly moving into a different stage of research, this has provided practical contexts for me to reflect on how I design research to ensure that social work principles and standards are embedded in the design from the start, but it is also providing me with a template, through the models given, to review the research but also some of the work we might do on a day to day basis when we try to gather feedback or run QI-type projects, of being aware of any potential harm that may be caused.

It also reminded me of the need to look beyond some of the UK texts I usually turn to and broaden my understanding of professional literature internationally.

Conclusion

This was a useful paper both in terms of research ethics, where it is most relevant but also worth considering some of the points in a more general exploration of social work ethics and how we make decisions about priorities in a work role.

Reflection: On Linking Practice, Research and Writing about It.

After a month or so of writing on this site, after a couple of false starts over the years, I thought I’d reflect a bit on what I’ve learnt through writing and how my research work, day job and additional writing are coming together.

I have tried to develop more of a discipline with the writing. Whether this will see me through the next three years (or so) to completion of my doctorate or not, I don’t know but what I do know is that writing is easy when you are on a roll, but it needs to be a discipline in order to make it a habit. I have never been one for self-help books, especially, but it was a book I read that emphasised the point which, thinking about it, is obvious (which I guess is the same for many self-help books) that to write when you don’t feel like writing, is the toughest part.

It’s also incredibly easy to stop writing. Yes, it’s about creating a habit but it doesn’t always develop naturally through habit and just a day or two of a lapse, makes it much harder to re-start.

I tend to work towards deadlines. One of the hardest things I’ve found about moving to a research aspect of a degree rather than a taught part is the flexibility of deadlines and knowing this in my head. I’ve bought myself (I did this last year as well) an A4 day to view diary with monthly plans at the front and while I’m a big fan of digitalisation, this diary sits on my desk and I make notes about what I have done and am planning to each day. I have the next few months mapped out and whilst that may and is likely to change, I have set myself clear expectations.

My ‘research diary’ as such sits on OneNote but having a paper version allows for other notes and is particularly helpful for setting myself deadlines. The problem with deadlines is the disappointment when you fail to meet them but while trying to build a discipline, I’m also trying not to be too hard on myself.

Along that line, the writing has been on the basis that I will review one paper a week and one book a week. I have deleted one post I published because I was told (and this was correct) that I had fatally misinterpreted an acronym used in the research paper which had completely changed its meaning. This was a very useful lesson to me about assumptions made, on my part and on the part of those who write for us. I am also not sure if I will be able to keep to that pace. I read a lot anyway, and a lot of the books I am reviewing, are books I’ve read over the last few years but having the discipline of trying to write regularly can be helpful, when it doesn’t involve too much pressure. It’s that balance between discipline and self-criticism that one has to walk, especially if you are particularly tired or stressed from work on one day.

While I want to succeed, I often have to prioritise work on a day to day basis and trying not to feel guilty when I spend days doing not-work, not-study things is also a focus.

I write because I want to practice writing. I am not looking at ‘hits’ or developing a loyal readership as I know I am quite selfishly choosing topics which are interesting to me. I choose papers I have found useful, either for my studying or for work. There is a paper that I read recently, that I thought was really poor and a book that I thought didn’t set out what it intended to. Generally, all the papers and books I have written about, I’ve found useful, helpful and well-written. I may need to develop more confidence before confronting the critical although that is a useful skill as well and one I will try to work on.

Often the last few years, I’ve had more division between my part time study and full time work. I had some study days generously granted by my employers and I brought some of the additional reading I had done into the workplace in exchange, including developing some additional mental capacity training which was rolled out. As I moved into a different job, the links are becoming easier to create because I am doing social work and studying about doing social work. It’s not always intrinsically linked because the areas of social work are different (long story) but what it has done is made me far more aware of the breadth of social work and the value in not compartmentalising the profession into ‘mental health’, ‘child protection’, ‘dementia’, ‘learning disabilities’. The ‘social work’ runs deeper and needs to run deeper than the topic. However, it has become more difficult to separate the time between work and study. I’ve had to actively use more leave which has an impact on the time to rest. This, I hope, will improve but it is a worry.

The other area I have become more aware of is the links and divisions between research and practice. Practitioner research happens and is happening. I am evidence of that. But in order for the profession to grow, it needs to happen far more. This isn’t about battle lines drawn between academia and practice. If anything, I have seen those are increasingly unhelpfully divisive, but we need to make space for more conversations and more conversations with the people who aren’t used to having these conversations – about how we can work together and how we can draw in more user and carer voices.

So I will try and continue as far as I can with the writing, as long as it helps me to learn. I keep telling myself that if I stop now, what I have learnt has already been worth the time (and financial) investment. I may move to one review post and one more flexible post, whether it’s posting links, an update on where I am going or how I use the various tools I use (I am currently on my fifth reference manager). Thank you for joining me.

Research in Social Work – January 2020 links (Open or Free Access papers)

When I started writing at the beginning of the year, I thought I’d compile a summary of links each month about news and research, but it became a bit too much to compile, and this is, fundamentally a hobby for me.

So, I’ve decided instead to highlight each month some open access papers that I’ve found useful, interesting or have bookmarked for later, that others might want to read because we all want accessible research information and the more we read, the more we understand what is worth reading. So here are a few for February – they aren’t always new, but they will be new to me!

This paper in Social Work Education (May 2019) looks at how critical reflection is taught in social work courses specifically in relation to working with older people.

This issue (2018) of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities is open access (most aren’t) so is worth browsing and includes (among other interesting ones) this article which is a study on what is it link to move house for people with learning disabilities.

This is a free access review of literature about trauma-informed care in inpatient mental health services (2013) from the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing which is a useful way to get a broader view of the topic at the moment.

On a slightly different tack, Critical Social Policy have an open access article from January 2019 on ‘Raising Critical Consciousness in the struggle against poverty’. Nice of them to make it free! Seriously though, we need to speak about poverty and the impact it has on our work at every level.

And Practice – Social Work in Action, has this article about decision-making of AMHPs which is a useful read from 2019.

Although this is not ‘my’ area of social work, this paper in Qualitative Social Work from December 2019 with birth mothers’ accounts of the impact of the removal of their children on their future lives has impact for all of us in the sector.

This 2017 paper on the role of trustworthiness in social work from Australian Social Work is definitely something I found helpful in my consideration of how we carry out ethical social work.

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