Intervention research involves developing and testing new strategies or enhancing existing ones by drawing on experience, theory, or data. It presents a framework for conducting program design, implementation, and evaluation using a theory-based, systematic approach. Intervention research progresses from qualitative front-end inquiry using methods comfortable for social workers to quantitative back-end clinical trials requiring considerable resources. Academic and health institutions can advance intervention research through improved collaboration with agencies and supporting early-career researchers.

1. By
Dr. D. Sreenivsa Reddy
Faculty, Department of Studies in Social Work
PG Centre, Nandihalli, Sandur
Intervention Research

2. When social workers draw on
experience, theory, or data in order to
develop new strategies or enhance
existing ones, they are conducting
intervention research.
This relatively new field involves
program design, implementation, and
evaluation and requires a theory-based,
systematic approach. Intervention
Research presents such a framework.

3.  Intervention research is presented as a sequence
of activities, in general moving from the qualitative
to the quantitative.
 Front-end inquiry—design and development—
uses methods that are comfortable for social
workers in agency settings and require modest
budgets.

4.  Although back-end endeavors—clinical
trials and the protocols therein—require
considerable resources, some
longitudinal studies can be carried out
even without a large budget or complex
research infrastructure.
 Academic researchers and health and
human services institutions could
advance intervention research by taking
steps to improve researcher-agency
collaboration and by re-examining
existing ways of training, hiring, and
developing early-career researchers.