Research Partnership

Community agencies know that outcome research is integral to the provision of quality and ethical services to clients, and to the receiving of funding. In-depth analysis of data, however, is beyond the capacity of many community agencies. Graduate social work students welcome the opportunity to learn and apply their knowledge and skills in research and to provide needed services to community agencies. When facilitated by an experienced and skilled research instructor, community agencies and students can benefit from a collaborative venture.

Working with Dr. Harder and the UNO students was great!  The whole process was well explained and regular communication maintained.  The students in "our" research group put together an excellent presentation and their enthusiasm and hard work was evident.  The results and recommendations has spurred our agency to review a few of our procedural practices and has given us a fresh perspective on issues related to service delivery as well.  This was a wonderful experience for which I am very thankful and would highly recommend!  (from Georganne, Downey, CA)

Purposes:

The purposes of Research Partnership project are two-fold:

  1. Provide opportunities for social work graduate students to learn and apply their knowledge and skills in research and program evaluation.
  2. Provide needed research services to community agencies, free of charge.

 Community agencies gain:

  • Valuable research services, at no charge, including an analysis of existing data, a literature review, and recommendations.
  • Written research reports, prepared by graduate-level social work students, that can be used to document and improve service delivery and for grantwriting.
  • Exposure to graduate-level social work students.

For more information: Brochure | Expectations | Procedures | Past Community Partners | Testimonials

Students gain:

  • Opportunity to learn and apply knowledge and skills through "service learning" in the course: SOWK 8190 Research and Computer Applications.
  • Exposure to community agencies and services provided by them.
  • Opportunity to provide a vital service to a community agency.

Publications on the Research Partnership model:

Harder, J. (2010). The research partnership model. In M. A. Cooksey & K. T. Olivares (Eds.), Quick hits for service-learning: Successful strategies by award-winning teachers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Research Partnership is a service-learning model utilized to teach research and data analysis knowledge and skills to graduate students. It provides hands-on activities within an authentic context, group support and individual accountability, and structured and incremental learning opportunities. To date, this Instructor has used this model six times, with 64 students and 14 community agencies and/or projects with very positive results.

Harder, J. (2010). Overcoming MSW students' reluctance to engage in research. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 30, 195-209.

Social work students are typically reluctant to engage in research. The Research Partnership model takes a service-learning approach, allowing students to work with data from a community agency and resulting in a final paper with all the sections of an empirical journal article. Use of this model in teaching social work research enhances student motivation, learning, and skills through hands-on activities within an authentic context, and by using group support with individual accountability, structured and incremental learning opportunities, and teaching from a strengths-based perspective.

Thank you for the assistance of the University of Nebraska of Omaha, Service-Learning Academy in connecting with community partners.