James Ruby

Barriers to Practitioner Research: Making Research Education Relevant and Productive James Ruby

Every mental health practitioner - counselor, social worker, marriage and family therapist - must endure at least one graduate level research methods course. Some students dread the experience and even wonder why they should be subjected to such torture! Mental health practitioner educators might have a variety of reasons why such coursework is important, but a review of the existing research literature makes it clear that very few masters level pracitioners engage in much research actitity. What stands in their way? What would meaningful research efforts by masters level practitioners look like? How can those of us who educate them make training in research more meaningful and relevant? These issues were investigated in an in-depth study and the answers to these questions are addressed in this work, Barriers to Practitoner Research.