The Birth of "Rubin and Babbie" and Other Stories: Interview with Allen Rubin, Ph.D.

[Episode 39] In this episode of the social work podcast, I continue my conversation with author Dr. Allen Rubin. We talked about how he came to co-author Research Methods for Social Work (the most widely used social work research text) and his most recent text - Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Based Practice. We talked about one of his current research projects - the development of a scale that can be used to evaluate how well social workers are learning evidence-based practice. We ended our conversation with Allen talking about a series of books he is co-editing with David Springer that will have practical "how-to" chapters on evidence-based approaches to today's most important clinical issues.

Download MP3 [15:31]

Dr. Rubin is the Bert Kruger Smith Centennial Professor in the School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been a faculty member since 1979. He served as an editorial reviewer for 14 professional journals, was a founding member of the Society for Social Work and Research and served as its vice president from 1996 to 1998 and then as its president from 1998 to 2000. He is the recipient of many awards, including the co-recipient of the Society for Social Work and Research Award for Outstanding Examples of Published Research, the 1993 recipient of the University of Pittsburgh, School of Social Work's Distinguished Alumnus Award, and the 2007 recipient of the Council On Social Work Education's Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr. Rubin continues to be a big fan the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.

Dr. Rubin can be heard talking about research for social work practitioners and advice for young social work investigators at the Social Work Podcast. This series of interviews was recorded using Skype.

References and Resources

• National Association for Social Workers (n.d.). What IS social work research?. http://www.socialworkers.org/research/researchMore.asp [electronic resource]
• National Institute of Mental Health (n.d.). Information for Researchers - Grants. NIMH website: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-funding/grants/index.shtml
  
• Rubin, A. (2006). Statistics for Evidence-Based Practice and Evaluation. Wadsworth.
• Rubin, A. (2007). Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Based Practice. Wiley.
• Rubin, A., & Babbie, E. (2007). Research Methods for Social Work. (6th edition) Wadsworth. [Google Books preview of 5th edition]

APA (5th ed) citation for this podcast:

Singer, J. B. (Host). (2008, May 19). The birth of "Rubin and Babbie" and other stories: Interview with Allen Rubin, Ph.D. [Episode 39]. Social Work Podcast. Podcast retrieved Month Day, Year, from http://socialworkpodcast.com/2008/05/birth-of-rubin-and-babbie-and-other.html