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BJSW Advance Access published online on October 3, 2005
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bch307
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Article

Assessing the Quality of Knowledge in Social Care: Exploring the Potential of a Set of Generic Standards

Andrew F. Long 1*, Lesley Grayson 2, and Annette Boaz 3

1 School of Healthcare, University of Leeds
2 Research Fellow (Information Access) at the ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice, Queen Mary, University of London
3 Research fellow in the ESRC UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice, Queen Mary, University of London

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Andrew F. Long, E-mail: a.f.long{at}leeds.ac.uk


  Abstract

Social care policy and practice draw on multiple sources of knowledge. In order to help practitioners and policymakers identify and act on the basis of high quality evidence, ways of assessing the quality of this knowledge are needed. Part of the answer may lie in the use of a set of generic standards. To test the potentiality of this approach, one document from each of five core domains of social care knowledge was selected and assessed independently by three researchers using a set of generic standards developed within a study commissioned by the Social Care Institute for Excellence. Critical reflections on feasibility and added value were recorded. Each reviewer successfully applied the set of standards to each document, but faced problems with interpretation and the identification of source-specific standards. Use of the TAPUPAS schema forced consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of each document and broadened the common notion of quality and quality assessment to sources beyond the traditional research domain. This small-scale testing suggests the potential of the schema to enable assessments of quality to be applied across knowledge sources within both social care and other applied discipline areas such as health and education. As with any quality assessment tool, training in its use is required.

Keywords: Standards, knowledge, quality assessment, social care.
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