Sources of Knowledge for Practice

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Abstract
This article examines the concept of practice knowledge and its relationship to the use of various sources of knowledge to perform specific job tasks The authors sent questionnaires to social workers who had received master's degrees two and seven years previously from two Northwestern U.S. universities, and received responses from 90 for a response rate of 41%. The questionnaires solicited information on the use and ratings of various knowledge sources in the respondents' work The respondents indicated they used various sources in various ways, but the findings show only a weak correspondence between the importance assigned to the sources and how frequently they were used The authors suggest a need exists to explore how different knowledge sources are synthesized into information applicable to the work setting, and propose that practice knowledge be examined in terms of such a synthesis. They further argue that knowledge synthesis may play a major role in knowledge use and in various problem-solving and decision-making processes outside the human services.