Evaluating Practice: Guidelines for the Accountable Professional (3rd Edition)

New edition of a text which presents to students and practitioners in the helping professions the knowledge, skills, and procedures to evaluate their own practices. Focuses on single-system designs, which are systematic ways of analyzing, measuring, and evaluating practice, with an emphasis upon conceptualizing and measuring client and client/system targets and goals, designing an evaluation, and analyzing the ongoing data to supply corrective feedback. Provides both research and practical background for such methods. Includes two personal computer programs in the Windows format designed to assist practitioners. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

How do psychologists remain objective when listening to the highly personal problems of their clients? How do social workers measure the problems of their clients within the context of personal and economic factors? How do psychiatrists evaluate whether a patient's condition warrants drug therapy? The accountable professional must have the procedural and experiential know-how to transform data into decisions, and to convert personal problems into objective solutions. For assistance in this type of evaluation, professionals have always turned to the Bloom book - the standard work in evaluation. This revision incorporates both qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluation, and provides extensive coverage of all aspects of evaluation. Step-by-step procedures are combined with clear examples on how to assess the practice situation, how to measure, what designs to use, and how to analyze the data in order to make practice decisions and to show accountability. A complete set of computer programs included with the book also helps with the data analysis. A new chapter has been added on computerized data analysis, and many chapters also include a new section on the impact of managed care. Clear guidelines add to the book's practicality and accessibility, explaining how concepts should be implemented. Social workers, psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists, nurses, and researchers in this field.