Comprehensive appraisal AND Application Assignment 2022

Spring 2020
ASSIGNMENT 3
RESEARCH ARTICLE COMPREHENSIVE APPRAISAL AND APPLICATION
(35% of Course Grade)
Guidelines
DUE: FINAL EXAM WEEK BY MIDNIGHT PST (DATE TO BE SPECIFIED
BY SECTION INSTRUCTOR)
Aims of Assignment
The overarching aim of Assignment 3 is to prepare you for professional social
work practice by enhancing your ability to use research knowledge and
evidence to inform practice decisions. Specific aims of the assignment
include the following:
1) to provide you with an opportunity to apply an evidence-based practice
approach when identifying and conceptualizing practice problems and
questions;
2) to prepare you to effectively use evidence hierarchies and Impact Factors
to determine and locate the best available evidence for addressing
specified practice problems and questions; and
3) to guide you through the process of appraising relevant empirical
research and interpreting and applying the best available evidence to
address specified practice problems and questions.
By the end of Assignment 3, you will have formulated and answered an
effectiveness practice question of interest to you. In doing so, you will have
enhanced your competencies as a social worker by increasing your
professional knowledge and skills. You will also have developed a portfolio
that you can share with prospective employers.
Format & Approach
As with the previous assignments, Assignment 3 uses a worksheet format to
provide you with structured guidelines and opportunities to enhance your
knowledge and skills. The assignment consists of discussions of four
components related to: (1) locating empirical research knowledge and
evidence relevant to the practice question you have specified; (2) selecting
the best available evidence; (3) critically appraising the best available
evidence; and (4) applying the best available evidence. You will notice that
these components correspond with the major phases of the evidence-based
practice process and approach. These components also comprise the major
parts of the assignment.
Grading & Submission
Assignment 3 comprises 35% of your final grade. Grading for the assignment
will be based on a 100-point scale. Points for each item are identified within
the assignment. The total number of points earned will then be converted
into a 35-percentage point scale. Points will be based on (a) the presence or
SOWK 546 Page 1 of 24 Science of Social Work

absence of a response to each assignment question or item; (b) the
completeness of your response; (c) the thoughtfulness of your response; (d)
the clarity of your response; and especially (e) the degree to which you
appropriately AND correctly apply key concepts and terminology.
Please note that your grade for Assignment 3 is independent of your grades
for other assignments in the course.
Ground students should submit assignments via email or as otherwise
instructed. VAC students should submit assignments via the VAC platform.
Use the following convention for naming your assignments.
SOWK 546 – Assignment 3 – [insert First Name] [insert Last Name]
Learning Outcomes Addressed by Assignment 3
This assignment addresses the following student learning outcomes: 2 - 5.
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OVERVIEW
Instructions
For this assignment, you are asked to locate at least 10 publications that
provide empirical evidence relevant to the effectiveness practice question
that you addressed in Assignment 2. You are also asked to place the articles
in a hierarchy (Part 1) and to select ONE article to critically appraise (Parts 3
and 4). The article you select to appraise should meet the following criteria:
1. It should be chosen from among the articles included in your
hierarchy (ideally towards the top of the hierarchy).
2. It should have been published in a peer-reviewed journal that has a
Journal Impact Factor for the year the article was published.
3. It should describe an original research study. In other words, the
article you select and appraise MAY NOT BE a meta-analysis,
systematic review, summary review, or secondary data analysis,
even though these types of articles might be included in your
hierarchy.
4. It should be no more than 7 years old.
Although not required, you are encouraged to select the article that you
preliminarily appraised in Assignment 2.
In preparing your responses, it is essential to provide enough detail so that
your instructor can assess your understanding of key concepts, as well as
your ability to appropriately and correctly apply both key concepts and
terminology.
PART 1. SPECIFYING SOCIAL WORK PROBLEMS AND LOCATING
RELEVANT RESEARCH ARTICLES AND EVIDENCE
(20 POINTS TOTAL)
1. Specify the social work EFFECTIVENESS PRACTICE QUESTION you
are seeking to answer. Your practice question should be
formatted using the PICO framework and include each of the PICO
components. (5 POINTS)
Among African refugees (P), is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (I) more effective
than Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) (C) in reducing PTSD symptoms (O)?
Population- African refugees
Intervention- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Control- Narrative Exposure Therapy
Outcome- Reducing PTSD symptoms
2. Briefly describe the approach that you used to search the
scientific literature for empirical research articles to help you
answer the specified practice question. At minimum, your
description should include or address the following: (1) scientific
databases and search engines used; (2) PICO key words used; (3)
how evidence/research hierarchies were used to guide your
search; and (4) criteria used to determine which articles would be
reviewed. Your description should be detailed enough that it can
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be understood, critiqued and replicated by others to yield the
same results that you obtained. (5 POINTS)
The approach that was used to evaluate the scientific resources in the form of empirical research articles was to
conduct the search in some of the reputed database such as PubMed, Science Direct, Elsevier, JSTOR, IEEE
Xplore and Directory of Open Access Journals and other. The PICO ley words that had been used for the
searching were African, refugees, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Narrative Exposure
Therapy, eye problem and PSTD symptoms. The hierarchy of evidence is a heuristic that is used for ranking the
strength of the results that has been obtained from scientific research. The evidence hierarchy was taken into
consideration while for the journal articles and thus, the highest-ranking evidence was used in the study. The
criteria that were used for determination of the article that was reviewed were from 2010, were published in
English and were found in reputed journals.
3. Hierarchy of Evidence (10 POINTS) - Using the table template
below, summarize 10 publications providing empirical evidence
for addressing your effectiveness practice question. Your table
should place the publication offering the highest level of evidence
at the top of the hierarchy and the one offering the lowest level
of evidence at the bottom. For each publication, include the
following information:
 Full reference (not in-text citation) using APA format;
 Journal Impact Factor for the journal and year in which the
article was published;
 Type of evidence offered in the article (e.g., meta-analysis,
systematic review, RCT, correlational study, case study,
qualitative study, etc.)Table 1. Hierarchy of Evidence Table
Full Citation (using APA formating)
Journal
Impact
Factor
Type of
Evidence
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1
Hensel-Dittmann, D., Schauer, M., Ruf, M., Catani, C.,
Odenwald, M., Elbert, T., & Neuner, F. (2011). Treatment
of traumatized victims of war and torture: a randomized
controlled comparison of narrative exposure therapy and
stress inoculation training. Psychotherapy and
psychosomatics, 80(6), 345-352.
13.744 RCT
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