Research Guides: Social Work: Home

Getting Started

This research guide is designed to support students researching social work topics. It will help you get started finding articles, books, and other resources in this subject area, and help you be more efficient in your research and writing.

The guide is organized by the types of resources you may want to use in your projects, including:

Search Strategies: learn how to effectively search our databases. Read this page before delving into the other resources in this guide.
Find Articles: includes databases and journals most effective for your research.
Scholarly Articles: save yourself time—learn strategies for reading scholarly articles!
Find Books: examples of books and ebooks in our collection, as well as information about how to find more books.
Find Videos: includes resources for finding videos of therapy and counseling session, documentaries, and other videos.
Find Tests & Measures: tips for finding psychology tests and measures to use in your research, as well as resources to help you write your own surveys.
Find Statistics & Data: includes resources to help you locate statistics related to your research.
Find Public Policies: online resources for locating local and national laws and other public policies related to the family.
Professional Associations: links to family science professional associations.
Citations: help with citing your sources in APA style.

If you need any assistance with your research, contact a librarian using the contact information included in this guide. We're happy to help!

Most Used Resources

The following resources are frequently used for social work research. OneSearch (below) also works well, since it combines many databases plus the library's book and media collections. Explore the other pages of this guide to find additional resources for your research.

APA PsycInfo [EBSCO]
This database from the American Psychological Association includes journal articles on a wide range of behavioral and social science topics, such as psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology, linguistics, treatments and counseling, and addiction. Late 1800s-present, mostly peer-reviewed content, partial full text available.
APA PsycArticles [EBSCO]
This database provides full text access to journal articles from the American Psychological Association. It covers a wide range of behavioral and social science topics, such as psychology, psychological treatment, counseling, developmental psychology, and educational psychology. 1984-present, peer-reviewed content, full text available.
SocINDEX [EBSCO]
Covers topics including gender studies, criminal justice, social psychology, religion, racial studies and social work. Some peer-reviewed content, partial full text available.
Psychotherapy.net Films [Psychotherapy.net]
Non-peer reviewed. Videos.
This database focuses on the fields of psychology and counseling training. Contains hundreds of videos organized by approach, therapeutic issue, and more.

National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
Founded in 1955, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with more than 120,000 members. Use their website to learn about common research topics in social work, and learn about career and professional development opportunities.

Social Workers' Desk Reference (Ebook) by Kevin Corcoran and Albert R. Roberts (Editors-In-Chief)
Publication Date: 2015

This book is also available in print.
With 159 chapters collaboratively written by luminaries in the profession, this third edition of the Social Workers' Desk Reference serves as a comprehensive guide to social work practice by providing the most recent conceptual knowledge and empirical evidence to aid in the understanding of the rapidly changing field of social work. Each chapter is short and contains practical information in addition to websites and updated references.

Search for Articles

The articles tab on the library's homepage The best place to start most searches is the search box on the library's homepage. This search box defaults to Articles, giving you quick access to popular and scholarly articles from thousands of different publications.