Social work students' and practitioners' orientation to research

Practitioners' orientation toward research was compared with that of social work students. Practitioners' views on the importance and usefulness of research were significantly less favorable than those of graduate students in social work and more similar to students at the BSW level; but no differences were found with regard to belief in the unbiased nature of social work research. The differences between the practitioners and graduate students might be a manifestation of the failure of the curriculum to articulate research concepts and methodology in a manner responsive to the realities of practice.