There are no changes that will affect your research education at SSW. Second summer students will take the foundation research course and will write a thesis over the fall-spring terms. The thesis can be a faculty-sponsored empirical project conducted individually or as a group, as the project is defined. Options for doing such projects vary depending on faculty projects: what is available this year will be described during the summer. Your thesis can also be an individually designed and carried out empirical project, which each student will work to develop with a Research Adviser assigned towards the end of the summer. Information about the thesis can be found at the page linked below. The process will be explained at the thesis orientation meeting held by Thesis Coordinator Jean LaTerz on June 8th.
For more information, visit http://www.smith.edu/ssw/acad_msw_thesis.php
Welcome to Smith College School for Social Work! Like the class ahead of you, all students will take the two-term foundational research class in the second summer. Unlike the class ahead of you, you will not be required to do a thesis during your second year placement. Instead, you will fulfill your specialization SSW research requirements from the options described briefly below.
Second Summer: All students take the two term Foundation Research Methods course.
Second Field Term: Research Practicum class (optional)
Third Summer: All students take the Evidence-based Practice course and one elective from the options below.
The Evidence-based Practice course is based on the second year case study.
The class will begin with a focus on systematic ways of identifying relevant research, discerning high quality research, and developing and writing a literature review relevant to your second year case study.
Third summer electives must include one of the following options to fulfill the research elective requirement:
1) Students may take a research practicum course either during the fall or spring terms.
For students wanting more experience in conducting research, the option will exist to work in a structured environment with a faculty advisor and up to 6 other students during one term of the second year placement. The work will count as a research elective.
2) Alternatively, students can choose from among electives during the third summer.
Students will have three courses to choose from as research electives: Program Evaluation and Advanced Methods (Qualitative and Quantitative) will be two of them. The third course may vary: two likely options include Community-based Research or Creating an Archive of Scholarship and Empirical Evidence on Marginalized Populations.
3) Independent Study
Along similar lines of the thesis but smaller in scope, students interested in independent work in research may solicit faculty sponsorship to conduct their own study.
For future reference, this and related information can be found on the MSW Research Sequence page.
For more information, visit http://www.smith.edu/ssw/acad_msw_researchsequence.php