January 23rd, 2020 
Respond to two colleague’s post by raising questions about the value of the evidence based on the quantitative or qualitative data analysis described by the classmate. Please use the resources to support your post.
Colleague 1
In the case study entitled, Social Work Research: Measuring Group Success, a group of eight female sexual abuse and/or incest survivors were participants in a treatment group over the course of 12 weeks (Plummer, Makris, & Brocksen, 2014). The women were given a pretest and posttest administration of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) (Plummer, Makris, & Brocksen, 2014) and were exposed to therapeutic treatment over the course of the study. The descriptive statistics that may be used to analyze data are the pretest summed scores of all participants that show symptoms they are experiencing, such as: depression 210, anxiety 138, and stress 190; and the posttest summed scores of: depression 45, anxiety 45, and stress 61. Rather than using each participants score, the sum of each category provides a simplified descriptive context for data analysis (Plummer, Makris, & Brocksen, 2014; Trochim, 2020). Inferential statistics may be applied by comparing the differences between the pretest and posttest scores, and making an inference as to the relationships.
In practice, utilizing descriptive statistics can give researchers and social workers an idea of what the data is showing, whereas inferential statistics attempt to go beyond what the data show by making inferences about general conditions (Trochim, 2020). In the above study, a social worker may find the cumulative scores more manageable and they provide a glimpse of what is going on with the participants. By comparing both data sets, it may be inferred that the treatment process may have had a substantial impact on the participants reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stressso long as they are not simply the result of sampling error (Yegidis, Weinbach, & Myers, 2018). In understanding these relationships and applying them to future practice as a social worker, the provision of services may be more effective.
References
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Foundation year.
Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader]
Trochim, W. M. (2020). Descriptive statistics. Retrieved January 22, 2020, from
https://socialresearchmethods.net/kb/descriptive-statistics/
Yegidis, B. L., Weinbach, R. W., & Myers, L. L. (2018). Research methods for social workers (8th ed.).
New York, NY: Pearson.
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Colleague 2
The case study evaluated a 12-week psychoeducational support group for survivors of trauma consisting of eight women (five of whom identified as Caucasian and three of whom were Hispanic in origin) who had a history of sexual abuse and/or incest (Plummer, 2014). I would utilize descriptive statistics to describe and measure the data collected from the support group. I would evaluate the range and frequency occurring within the data collected from analyzing every aspect of the survivors participating in the support group. Descriptive statistics allows you to understand the specific set of observations (Frost, 2018). With descriptive statistics, there is no uncertainty because you are describing only the people or items that you actually measure (Frost, 2018). Youre not trying to infer properties about a larger population (Frost, 2018). This procedure allows us to gain more insights and visualize the data (Frost, 2018). As social workers you encounter various situations, working in the field evaluating findings using descriptive statistics can be very helpful in terms of educating yourself with a concise outline of data collected. This approach is easier to interpret and visualize.
Reference
Frost, J. (2018). Difference between Descriptive and Inferential Statistics. Retrieved from
https://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/descriptive-inferential-statistics/
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Foundation year.
Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
Social Work Research: Measuring Group Success
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