Social Work Practitioners and Ways of Knowing

Social work practitioners employ three sources of knowledge: (a) experiential ways of knowing and evidence, (b) theoretical ways of knowing and
evidence, and (c) empirical ways of knowing and evidence (Williams & Glasby, 2010). Because most social work students come into the PhD Social
Work or DSW programs with a firm practitioner identity, they may rely more heavily on experiential ways of knowing. This makes sense because they
have been in the field for many years.
However, these ways of knowing draw on authority, tradition, emotions, past experiences, and intuition, which can be questionable (Gambrill, 2012).
As you continue in your doctoral program, you will be encouraged to shift to using theoretical and empirical evidence when you make claims. This
requires understanding research methods in order to critically evaluate practices that have an evidence-based. In your social work practice, you
should begin to reflect on how you make social work decisions and the sources of knowledge upon which those decisions are based.
To prepare:
Review this book chapter listed in the Learning Resources: Gambrill, E. (2012). Different views of knowledge and how to get it: Exploring your
personal epistemology. In Eileen Gambrill, Critical thinking in clinical practice: Improving the quality of judgments and decisions (pp. 87–124). New
York: John Wiley.
Focus on pages 90-99, where sources of knowledge is covered.
Post:
**Identify two sources of knowledge from Gambrill’s chapter and explain how a social worker uses these different types of “questionable” knowledge
in practice.
**Offer an example of how each type of “questionable” knowledge guides your decision-making in social work practice.
**Evaluate one strength and one limitation in using these two sources of knowledge to guide decision-making in social work practice.
**Identify specific ways how a doctoral education will help you develop skills to critically evaluate evidence to determine which practices to use based
on the evidence-base