ABSTRACT
How can research and evaluation strategies be used to promote user participation and involvement? The question is still fairly novel, and there is by no means universal agreement that such purposes should be part and parcel of inquiry. Social work research is conventionally assumed to involve a rigorous application of methodology in order to provide answers to policy, practice or conceptual problems. Lincoln and Guba define research as a ‘type of disciplined inquiry undertaken to resolve some problem in order to achieve understanding or to facilitate action’ (Lincoln and Guba 1986, p.549). Research is viewed as a relatively sophisticated means to a larger end. The problem focus, research design, fieldwork, analysis, reporting and dissemination of results are all seen as the work of experts undertaken for the good of some present or future beneficiaries.
