William M. Epstein

Confirmational Response Bias Among Social Work Journals

This article reports the results of a study of confirmational response bias among social work journals. A contrived research paper with positive findings and its negative mirror image were submitted to two different groups of social work journals and to two comparison groups of journals outside social work. The quantitative results, suggesting bias, are tentative; but the qualitative findings based upon an analysis of the referee comments are clear and consistent. Few referees from prestigious or nonprestcgrous social work journals prepared reviews that were knowledgeable, scientifically astute, or objective. The best reviews came from journals outside of soccal work or from journals that are accepted as social work journals but originate with other disciplines.

Welfare in America: How Social Science Fails the Poor

Welfare in America is a scathing attack on the social scientists, policy makers, and politicians responsible for programs meant to help our nations poorest citizens. William M. Epstein charges that most current social welfare programs are not held to credible standards in their design or their results. Rather than spending less on such research and programs, however, Epstein suggests we should spend much more, and do the job right. The American public and policymakers must be able to rely on social science research for objective, credible information when trying to solve problems of employment, affordable housing, effective health care, and family integrity. But, Epstein contends, politicians treat welfare issues as ideological battlegrounds; they demand immediate results from questionable data and implement policies long before social researchers can complete their analyses. Social scientists often play into the political agenda, supporting poorly conceived programs and doing little to test and revise them. Analyzing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the recent welfare reform act, Food Stamps, Medicaid, job training, social services, and other programs, Epstein systematically challenges the conservatives vain hope that neglect is therapeutic for the poor, as well as the liberals conceit that a little bit of assistance is sufficient.

Confirmational Response Bias and the Quality of the Editorial Processes Among American Social Work Journals

Objective: To experimentally test for confirmational response bias among social work journals and to assess the time-liness and quality of the referee review process. Method: A positive and a negative version of two stimulus articles were sent to two randomized groups of 31 social work journals; journals were stratified by prestige; the timeliness of journal responses were recorded; four judges rated the quality of referee reviews against a high-quality referee review from a prestigious clinical psychology journal. Results: The differences in acceptance rates between positive and negative versions of the stimulus articles were significant in one case and not significant in the other. Combining the results of this experiment with a previous experiment produced significant results overall; the quality of 73.5% of the referee reviews were inadequate. Conclusion: There are substantial problems of bias, timeliness, and quality in the editorial decisions and review processes of social work journals.

Response bias in opinion polls and American social welfare

Abstract Response bias and notably response falsification undercut the usefulness of opinion polls in characterizing collective American attitudes toward social welfare. The attitudes polled in surveys such as the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Election Studies (NSS) appear to be customarily sensitive, often evidencing very large amounts of response falsification that obscure the degree of consensus for Americas bifurcated social welfare system. Response bias and falsification greatly affect self-reports of family income, drinking and drug abuse, sex behavior, voting, and a large number of other attitudes central to the provision of social welfare. The problems of response bias may be intractable and attention might profitably return to traditional scholarship that attends to actual collective choices, e.g., legislation, as still imperfect but more reliable estimates of the national will.

Social Work in the University

Abstract This article asserts that social work is failing to fulfill its professional obligations to people in need, in part because its academic institutions are failing to perform their basic intellectual functions. The author presents evidence that false reports of the effectiveness of the nations social welfare services exaggerate the degree to which social therapeutics and professional techniques have been successful, which has in turn prevented an accurate approach to resolving social problems and has diminished the claims of people in need. The author asserts that a reinvigorated role for academic social work requires credible research, a shift in curricular emphases, and a supportive constituency drawn from populations at risk and their organizations.

Social science, child welfare, and family preservation: A failure of rationality in public policy

Abstract The social service community has accepted at least formally the dictates of science in evaluating its outcomes. Unfortunately even its most sophisticated research has routinely failed to conform with the rules of credible scientific research. As a result, the fields statements of its effectiveness are misleading and its policy advice is suspect. This paper develops these themes in reference to foster care and family preservation, focusing upon perhaps the best single evaluative study ever conducted in social work, the recent evaluation of family preservation services in Illinois.

Science and Social Work

Social work research has failed to comply with a scientific standard. Because of this failure, practice is indeterminate and the field is deprived of valid demonstrations of its ability to cure, prevent, or rehabilitate. Social works difficulties in complying with a scientific standard may not be able to be resolved because of inherent problems of social work practice. It is suggested that a scientific standard is inappropriate for social work and that more emphasis be placed on the professions central task-the provision of surrogate services.

Postmodernism: A Dead End in Social Work Epistemology

Postmodernism continues to have a detrimental influence on social work, questioning the Enlightenment, criticizing established research methods, and challenging scientific authority. The promotion of postmodernism by editors of Social Work and the Journal of Social Work Education has elevated postmodernism, placing it on a par with theoretically guided and empirically based research. The inclusion of postmodernism in the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards of the Council on Social Work Education and its 2015 sequel further erode the knowledge-building capacity of social work educators. In relation to other disciplines that have exploited empirical methods, social work’s stature will continue to ebb until postmodernism is rejected in favor of scientific methods for generating knowledge.

A Response to Pardeck: Thump Therapy for Social Work Journals

The quality of social work practice is tied to the quality and dedication of its subcommunity of scholars in pursuing solutions to the field’s defining problems. Tests of its effectiveness in resolving those problems and the preparatory studies that build toward those tests are the heart of the process. They are the field’s most important properties, offering evidence of its social value. The problems of social work journals are symptoms of the debasement of its intellectual life. Although there can be an intellectual life without a

Of Newsletters and Scholarly Journals

Social Work is a cautionary tale of what happens to a journal when it accedes to pressure for a professionally comforting publication. Pardeck and Meinert’s (1999) data make a strong case for dropping Social Work from the Social Science Citation Index and accepting it on its own merits: A membership association’s glorification of itself.