A Decade of Social Group Work Research: Trends in Methodology, Theory, and Program Development

Abstract

This study examines a decade of social work group outcome research. Fifty-four group research studies were identified in nine key social work journals and from Social Work Research and Abstracts. Methodological aspects of the studies were reviewed including theoretical orientation, group format, leadership, design, target problem or area, and measurement. Results of the review indicate that investigations of cognitive-behavioral groups dominate the research literature. Although a wide array of target problems have been studied, children's social skills and behavior problems are the most frequently examined. Among the markers of increasing methodological sophistication of the group research literature were balancing of group leadership across comparison group conditions and the use of multiple measures for determining outcome. Although experimental studies were the most frequent design used, they were outnumbered by the combination of quasi-experimental group compansons and nonexperimen tal designs.