Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1980

Seminar on Social Work Research The Seminar on Social Work Research, jo in tly spon sored by the Department of Social Work of this University, the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Council on Social Welfare, was held on 23rd July, 1980 for the ,purpose of exchanging ideas and experience in social work research. About sixty participants from Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Philip pines, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, U.S.A., the United Kingdom and Hong Kong took part in the Seminar. The Organi zing Committee of the Seminar was composed of academics o f the University's social work department, including ProfessorJohn Jones (Chairman),Mr. Daniel F. Chan, Mr. Mok Bong-ho ， and Ms. Agnes Ng. In his opening remarks, 'The Point of Research,' Professor John Jones pointed out, "An urgent task facing administrators in social agencies is determining if their organizations are accomplishing what they set out to do. Competent evaluation can provide administrators with objective information relating to the effects of past and present programmes and can assist in planning for the future. Social work programme evaluation may be designed to provide an assessment of programme efforts or, better still, to yield information on programme efficiency and effectiveness." He said, "Suchman proposes five categories of criteria according to which aprogramme may be judged—effort, performance, adequacy of performance, efficiency and process. Although the analysis of the process itself by which a programme produces results may seem to fall outside the realm of strict evaluative research, in practice such a study has both scientific and administrative significance, for it provides a social science frame of reference and it also allows an administrator to generalize about ‘what works' in aprogramme." The Seminar washeld in four sessions: (a) Social Service Delivery andCitizen Participation; (b) Poverty and Income Inequality ； (c) Planning, Research and Evaluation; (d) SocialWork Education and Training. The following papers were presented at the Seminar: Dr. Paul P. L. Cheung, “ Assessment of marital discord in social work practice: a revalidation of the index o f marital satisfaction" Ms. Myrna Blake, "The parameters of popular partici pation" Professor Nanthanee Jayasut, "Women's participation in rural development in two provinces of Thailand" Dr. Rosanna Y. N. Chan, "Revenue sharing: a U. S. experiment: implications for Asia" Dr. Antonin Wagner, "Inequality in a high income country with equal income distribution— the Swiss case" Professor David Macarov, "Welfare as work's hand maiden" Professor Richard J. Estes, "World social vulnerability: the social progress of nations, 1968-1978" Dr. M. Dennis Kimberley, "The use of time series analysis in evaluating management intervention in human services" Professor Rama S. Pandey, "Indicators of poverty at regional level" Dr. Joan Ellingham, "Development and operation of an integrated financial and social information com puter system for children-in-care" Professor C. David Hollister, “ Replication of a typo logy of alcoholics" Professor Edna R. Chamberlain, "Social Work and the delivery of legal services: problems in research design" Ms. Kay Ku, "The social welfare manpower survey 1980” Ms. Janet George, "Professional expectations and practice realities: a Hong Kong case study and its implications for social work educators" Dr. Ursula Koch, “ Social workers: professional training and their first job” 18