Cover Image
QR Code

Teaching Note—The Stats Requirement: Statistical Thinking as Social Work.

The statistics requirement in social work curricula can be seen by students as a detour from the substance of social work. In this note, I describe my experience teaching part-time master's students that statistical thinking is social work: it is an application of the social work code of ethics and...

Full description

Published in:Journal of Social Work Education Vol. 57; no. 1; pp. 205 - 211
Main Author: Waring, Melody K.
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd 2021
Subjects:
Decision making
Curriculum
Social case work
Social workers
Students
Teaching
Codes of ethics
Psychology of college teachers
Statistics
Data analysis
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:The statistics requirement in social work curricula can be seen by students as a detour from the substance of social work. In this note, I describe my experience teaching part-time master's students that statistical thinking is social work: it is an application of the social work code of ethics and a critical tool in practice for making pragmatic decisions. I use two applied examples to demonstrate how statistical thinking can equip social workers to both identify inequity (through "rejecting the null") and avoid practices with insufficient evidence (through "failing to reject the null"). Based on my experience, I suggest some strategies for other people to use when teaching statistics to social workers.