Glossary of Terms
Applicability (transferability)– The extent to which the findings of a study can be applied or transferred to other contexts, settings, or populations beyond the specific study sample.
Basic ethical principles (from the Belmont Report) - General judgments that serve as a basic justification for the many ethical prescriptions and evaluations of human actions.
- Respect for persons incorporates at least two basic ethical convictions: first, that individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and second, that persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection.
- Beneficence: persons are treated in an ethical manner not only by respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm, but also by making efforts to secure their well-being by doing no harm and maximizing benefits.
- Justice: just ways to distribute burdens and benefits, 1. to each person an equal share, 2. to each person according to individual need, 3. to each person according to individual effort, 4. to each person according to societal contribution, and 5. to each person according to merit.
Bias– Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). In research, bias is defined as “any process at any stage of inference which tends to produce results or conclusions that differ systematically from the truth” (Yarborough, 2021, para. 1). Bias is nearly always present in research; therefore, we must work towards detecting it in other’s work and preventing it in our own.
Coercion – When a participant faces undue or excess pressure to participate by either favorable or unfavorable means.
Code of Ethics – a set of standards that guide the professional conduct of social workers. The NASW Code of Ethics offers a set of values, principles and standards to guide decision-making and everyday professional conduct of social workers. It is relevant to all social workers and social work students regardless of their specific functions or settings. https://www.socialworkers.org/about/ethics/code-of-ethics
Community Based Participatory Research – Research with individuals and/or entities within the community who may fairly represent their interests, needs and/or concerns because they are both knowledgeable about and empowered to represent that community. Community partners are sought for research based on their expertise and not simply because they control the resources to facilitate the desired study.
Community-Based Research – It is research that draws upon the community’s (however variously defined) resources in terms of subjects, data, personnel, material or other support. Here, people in the community, once subject to classification, experimentation, and regulation, are now viewed as owners of skills, knowledge and expertise that may be useful to researchers and policy makers. Therefore, community-based research is primarily community situated, collaborative and action oriented. It is often used as an umbrella term for other forms of participatory research.
Comparison group – The group of participants in a study that are not randomized or matched and commonly do not receive the intervention we are evaluating.
Concept– notion or image that we conjure up when we think of some cluster of related observations or ideas.
Confidentiality – the right to control access to our personal information.
Confirmability – the degree to which the findings of a study are shaped by the participants and not researcher bias, motivations, and personal interests.
Control group – The group of participants in our study who do not receive the intervention under study with random assignment.
Credibility – states that the findings from a qualitative study are believable, trustworthy and accurate.
Customer satisfaction study - An evaluation designed to understand the experience of the client.
Dependability – the extent to which research findings are stable and consistent over time.
Dependent variable – The dependent variable is the variable that is measured by the evaluator to see if there is a change in knowledge, behavior, attitude, aptitude, or some other relevant construct. It is the variable that demonstrates the influence of the independent variable.
Epistemology – Epistemology guides theory development, it is the theory of how we know what we know. It encourages us to “develop [our] own understandings from the understandings of those best placed to know, as well as to examine our own bias and be reflexive in our work to critically examine how we know what we know (Phipps, 2016, para. 13).
Evidence-based practice– A process composed of “four equally weighted parts: 1. Current client needs and situation; 2. The [most] relevant research evidence; 3. Client values and preferences; and 4. The clinician’s expertise” (Drisko & Grady, 2015, p. 275).
Experimental design – Refers to research that is designed to specifically answer the question of whether there is a causal relationship between variables.
Experimental group – The experimental group is exposed to the intervention under investigation (i.e., intervention).
External validity– This is a synonymous term for generalizability – the ability to apply the findings of a study beyond the sample to the broader population.
Generalizability – The ability of the researcher to interpret the results of their study to members of the identified population of study that were not active participants.
Hierarchy of evidence – A framework by which peer reviewed literature is organized to demonstrate the levels of reliability and validity within a study, where a level 1 student is considered the most reliable and valid both related to internal and external project elements.
Independent variable – The program (or policy, or process) that is implemented in hopes of seeing a change in knowledge, behavior, attitude, aptitude, or some other relevant construct. The independent variable is manipulated by the evaluator.
Informed consent– A project participant’s voluntary agreement to participate in a study based on a full understanding of the study and of the possible risks and benefits involved.
Internal validity– Ability to say that one variable “causes” something to happen to another variables. It is very important to assess when thinking about studies that examine causation.
Logic Model – A graphic depiction (road map) that presents the shared relationship among the resources, activities, outputs, and impact for your program.
Meta-analysis – A study that combines raw data from multiple quantitative studies and analyzes the pooled data using statistics.
Meta-synthesis – A study that combines primary data from multiple qualitative sources and analyzes the pooled data.
Mixed Methods research – When researchers use both quantitative and qualitative methods in a project.
Needs assessment - An evaluation designed to highlight the needs of a particular community and/or population.
Outcome evaluation– Evaluates an intervention’s effectiveness within different populations on an identified change variable
Peer review – A formal process in which other esteemed researchers and experts ensure your work meets the standards and expectations of the professional field.
Project-based learning (PBL)– A method of developing knowledge and skills by engaging in real-world practice and problem-solving.
Positionality – A description of who you are that informs what you do. A statement about the researcher’s worldview and life experiences, specifically in respect to the research topic they are studying. It helps to demonstrate the subjective connection(s) the researcher has to the topic and is a way to encourage transparency in research.
Qualitative methods– Research design that examines words or other media to understand their meaning.
Quasi-experimental methods – The two groups studied in an experiment are nonequivalent and do not involve random assignments to the experimental and control groups.
Quantitative research – Objective research that involves the collection of empirical numerical data in a systemic manner. Measurement, and statistical analysis used as a way of testing hypotheses about the general laws applied to human behavior.
Radical Imagination – The Latin origin of the word radical means “from the root,” and a radical imagination is one that sees society’s problems, and the power that impacts our lives, as deeply rooted in systemic and structural inequalities and forms of exploitation.
This concurrently means that Radical Reimagination is the practice of envisioning the world of our deepest longing. It begins with an understanding of the whole problem to vehicle and imagine a new cycle of understanding, one that will be liberated “from the root” (YouthxYouth, n.d.).
Random assignment – When conducting experiments, each participant or group has the same probability of being assigned to a particular condition of the experiment.
Reflexivity – an attitude of attending systematically to the context of knowledge construction, especially the researcher’s effect, at every step of the research process.
Reliability – In reference to data collection measures, it is evidence that the measure consistently measures a concept (e.g., depression, grief, etc.) across populations and over time.
Sample – The group of people who are successfully recruited from the sampling frame to participate in a study.
Social impact – The effect of policies, practices, and programs on society.
Social issue – “A social [issue] is experienced collectively by an identifiable group or community of people, caused by a source external to them, that harms their welfare in specific ways, and can only be resolved by people themselves in partnership with the public and private sectors of society” (Brueggman, 2006, p. 27).
Statement of Purpose – a clear, compelling, and succinct description of your Capstone Project’s goals, context, and impact.
Theory – “a systematic set of interrelated statements intended to explain some aspect of social life” (Rubin & Babbie, 2017, p. 615).
Transferability (applicability) – The extent to which the findings of a study can be applied or transferred to other contexts, settings, or populations beyond the specific study sample.
Trustworthiness – Trustworthiness is a quality reflected in qualitative research that ensures the research is conducted in a credible way; a way that should produce confidence in the findings.
Validity – The extent to which the scores from a measure represent the variable they are intended to measure.
