Against the backdrop of the transformations in the entire framing of professional work, social work has come under close scrutiny in many countries, including Sweden. Doubts have been raised about practitioners’ existing knowledge base, and the importance of practitioners engaging in learning and the renewal and extension of professional capacities has been emphasized. The present thesis concerns knowledge use and learning in the daily practices of child investigation work. The aim is to explore processes of knowledge use and learning in practice. The study is based on a mix of qualitative approaches, basically from ethnography, comprising methods such as participant observations, interviews, reflective dialogues and documentary analysis of case data. The main findings demonstrate that investigation work is characterized mainly by the use of practice-based knowledge. Research-based knowledge is predominantly used as a means of explaining a client’s situation or to underpin and legitimize one’s own beliefs and decisions made on other grounds. Professional learning is largely adaptive in character, as the social workers learn to handle tasks in a fairly routinized way on the basis of rules or procedures that draw on existing knowledge in the practice setting. Two conclusions are drawn: First, the use of knowledge in child investigation work bears little resemblance to principles of evidence-based practice. Second, the reproduction of professional knowledge is largely implicit and taken for granted. The study offers insight into the much-discussed topic of putting knowledge into practice, which is of importance to strategies for organizing profes sional learning and knowledgeable practice. / Ett i allt högre grad vetenskapsbaserat samhälle har lett till att kunskapsbasen i många verksamheter ifrågasatts, däribland socialt arbete. Avhandlingen behandlar kunskapsanvändning och lärande i utredningsarbetet inom den sociala barn- och ungdomsvården. Syfte är att öka kunskapen kring hur individer använder kunskap och lär sig i och genom sin dagliga praktik. Avhandlingen baseras på fyra delstudier som genomförts i tre svenska kommuners socialtjänst. Det empiriska materialet består av deltagande observationer, intervjuer, reflekterande dialoger och dokumentanalyser. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i ett kognitivt perspektiv på lärande med teoretiska rötter i pragmatism. Ett grundläggande antagande bakom studien är att lärandet utgår från hur individen tolkar och förstår den situation som hen möter och därefter handlar. Resultaten visar att utredningsarbetet företrädesvis baseras på praktikbaserad kunskap som erhålls från tidigare erfarenheter och kollegor. Forskningsbaserad kunskap används huvudsakligen för att bekräfta och legitimera en uppfattning och inte för att ifrågasätta och utmana existerande åsikter och antaganden. Lärandet kan främst karaktäriseras som ett anpassningsinriktat lärande där praktikern med stöd i tidigare erfarenheter och utifrån befintlig kunskapsbas skapar rutiner för att hantera arbetet. Kunskapsanvändningen inom den sociala barn- och ungdomsvården ligger långt ifrån idealen för evidensbaserad praktik. Reproduktionen av professionell kunskap sker främst implicit och utan frågasättande. Förståelse för praktikers faktiska kunskapsanvändning och lärande har central betydelse för hur verksamheter kan organiseras för att stödja lärande i arbetet.

<p>This study is about how social workers use knowledge in their investigation work. The study includes 16 social workers documentation of their knowledge use in 21 investigations in three personal social services in Västerbotten, Sweden. The three research-questions that the study aims to answer are: what knowledge do they use, how do they use their knowledge and on what grounds do they choose these knowledge’s?</p><p>The studies empirical findings are a result of a systematic documentation instrument SPP (Systematic Planned Practice). The instrument consists of seven different forms that together correspond to the whole investigation process, from the first meeting with the client to a complete investigation. The SPP-instrument was designed by Professor Aaron Rosen from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. The SPP-instrument was used in this study as tool to gather information on what knowledge social workers use in the investigation work. The seven forms that the instrument consists of were sent to the social workers electronically. In each step of the investigation work the social workers filled out each form and send them back to the researcher for analyse.</p><p>The results from the study shows that social workers use a variety of different types of knowledge as a base for their decisions in the investigation work. In the majority of these knowledge’s the social workers relates them to actual client situations. When the social workers describe how they use their knowledge the result shows that they use different strategies to express their use of knowledge in relation to specific decisions in the investigation work. How they use these knowledge’s seams not to correspond with what kind of knowledge they have used. The social workers claims that their choice of knowledge as roughly has to do with two different set of circumstances: 1) circumstances that limits their choice of knowledge and 2) circumstances that they intellectual know that they can influence ones they reflect upon their choices, but not during the actual choice of knowledge.</p><p>All together the study shows that the social workers use of knowledge is partly a hidden process that they have trouble to express in writing. However this do not mean that they are short of relevant knowledge for their profession. Instead it shows that social workers use of knowledge is highly situational and that their use of knowledge is a cognitive process that is difficult to describe or conceptualise.</p>

This study is about how social workers use knowledge in their investigation work. The study includes 16 social workers documentation of their knowledge use in 21 investigations in three personal social services in Västerbotten, Sweden. The three research-questions that the study aims to answer are: what knowledge do they use, how do they use their knowledge and on what grounds do they choose these knowledge’s? The studies empirical findings are a result of a systematic documentation instrument SPP (Systematic Planned Practice). The instrument consists of seven different forms that together correspond to the whole investigation process, from the first meeting with the client to a complete investigation. The SPP-instrument was designed by Professor Aaron Rosen from Washington University in St. Louis, USA. The SPP-instrument was used in this study as tool to gather information on what knowledge social workers use in the investigation work. The seven forms that the instrument consists of were sent to the social workers electronically. In each step of the investigation work the social workers filled out each form and send them back to the researcher for analyse. The results from the study shows that social workers use a variety of different types of knowledge as a base for their decisions in the investigation work. In the majority of these knowledge’s the social workers relates them to actual client situations. When the social workers describe how they use their knowledge the result shows that they use different strategies to express their use of knowledge in relation to specific decisions in the investigation work. How they use these knowledge’s seams not to correspond with what kind of knowledge they have used. The social workers claims that their choice of knowledge as roughly has to do with two different set of circumstances: 1) circumstances that limits their choice of knowledge and 2) circumstances that they intellectual know that they can influence ones they reflect upon their choices, but not during the actual choice of knowledge. All together the study shows that the social workers use of knowledge is partly a hidden process that they have trouble to express in writing. However this do not mean that they are short of relevant knowledge for their profession. Instead it shows that social workers use of knowledge is highly situational and that their use of knowledge is a cognitive process that is difficult to describe or conceptualise.

The aim of this study was to describe and analyze how social workers working in social services using evidence based practice with special focus on the clients’ experiences and wishes as source of knowledge in collecting information, assessment and decision. To get to the social workers experiences and descriptions we used a qualitative method with semistructured interviews. The empiric material of the study consists of eight interviews with social workers working in different social offices in different areas, in southern Sweden. The main result of this study was that social workers use clients’ experiences and wishes differently in different parts of the investigations. The client gets decreasingly space the further into the investigation process the social worker gets; the clients’ experiences and wishes are used largely in the initial phase of the investigation, when it comes to collect information, and decreases when it comes to assessment and decision. For the clients’ experiences and wishes to be a part of the investigation at all we also found out that there are some conditions that have to be fulfilled, such as a cooperative and motivated client and sufficient workplace recourses. Another finding of the study was that social workers define and use evidence based practice in different ways and a number of conditions have to be fulfilled in order to the use of evidence based practice. In a second analyze we’ve looked into the social workers competence related to the findings of the main analyze, and one of the results of that was that social workers competence matter when it comes to the use of the clients’ experiences and wishes in their work.

Against the backdrop of the transformations in the entire framing of professional work, social work has come under close scrutiny in many countries, including Sweden. Doubts have been raised about practitioners’ existing knowledge base, and the importance of practitioners engaging in learning and the renewal and extension of professional capacities has been emphasized. The present thesis concerns knowledge use and learning in the daily practices of child investigation work. The aim is to explore processes of knowledge use and learning in practice. The study is based on a mix of qualitative approaches, basically from ethnography, comprising methods such as participant observations, interviews, reflective dialogues and documentary analysis of case data. The main findings demonstrate that investigation work is characterized mainly by the use of practice-based knowledge. Research-based knowledge is predominantly used as a means of explaining a client’s situation or to underpin and legitimize one’s own beliefs and decisions made on other grounds. Professional learning is largely adaptive in character, as the social workers learn to handle tasks in a fairly routinized way on the basis of rules or procedures that draw on existing knowledge in the practice setting. Two conclusions are drawn: First, the use of knowledge in child investigation work bears little resemblance to principles of evidence-based practice. Second, the reproduction of professional knowledge is largely implicit and taken for granted. The study offers insight into the much-discussed topic of putting knowledge into practice, which is of importance to strategies for organizing profes sional learning and knowledgeable practice. / Ett i allt högre grad vetenskapsbaserat samhälle har lett till att kunskapsbasen i många verksamheter ifrågasatts, däribland socialt arbete. Avhandlingen behandlar kunskapsanvändning och lärande i utredningsarbetet inom den sociala barn- och ungdomsvården. Syfte är att öka kunskapen kring hur individer använder kunskap och lär sig i och genom sin dagliga praktik. Avhandlingen baseras på fyra delstudier som genomförts i tre svenska kommuners socialtjänst. Det empiriska materialet består av deltagande observationer, intervjuer, reflekterande dialoger och dokumentanalyser. Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i ett kognitivt perspektiv på lärande med teoretiska rötter i pragmatism. Ett grundläggande antagande bakom studien är att lärandet utgår från hur individen tolkar och förstår den situation som hen möter och därefter handlar. Resultaten visar att utredningsarbetet företrädesvis baseras på praktikbaserad kunskap som erhålls från tidigare erfarenheter och kollegor. Forskningsbaserad kunskap används huvudsakligen för att bekräfta och legitimera en uppfattning och inte för att ifrågasätta och utmana existerande åsikter och antaganden. Lärandet kan främst karaktäriseras som ett anpassningsinriktat lärande där praktikern med stöd i tidigare erfarenheter och utifrån befintlig kunskapsbas skapar rutiner för att hantera arbetet. Kunskapsanvändningen inom den sociala barn- och ungdomsvården ligger långt ifrån idealen för evidensbaserad praktik. Reproduktionen av professionell kunskap sker främst implicit och utan frågasättande. Förståelse för praktikers faktiska kunskapsanvändning och lärande har central betydelse för hur verksamheter kan organiseras för att stödja lärande i arbetet.

Magister Public Health - MPH / This thesis explores the interconnected problems of ―why health information is not used in practice?‖ and ―what can be done to address this problem?‖ The primary aim of the thesis was to make an assessment of the existing Health Management Information System (HMIS) in India with respect to its ability to support the use of information for action in priority areas identified by the national and state governments. The problem of lack of effective information use in health management has been fairly well documented in the literature, but much less has been said about what can be done about it, other than the rather superficial advice of increasing the levels of training. The empirical setting for the examination of these research questions was within the public sector in India, where the research took place within an action research framework. The author was actively engaged as a participant with national and state authorities in the process of redesigning of the HMIS, building and deploying to the states various HMIS reform systems including the software, capacity building and making systems sustainable and scalable. A key focus area of the action research was aimed at enabling systems that would promote the utilization of the routine data being collected through the HMIS, and integrating the same with action areas such as related to planning, monitoring and evaluation. Data collection was carried out through various methods including interviews with key stakeholders, observations, formal and informal discussions carried out face to face and through emails or telephone communication, and the writing of various reports which were then commented on by various people including the state and national level user departments. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed. Quantitative data collected through the ―Readiness Matrix for Information for Action‖ across the three dimensions of human resources, technical infrastructure and institutional conditions helped to see how states performed individually and how they ranked compared to each other on information generation and use. The matrix also helped to diagnose the dimensions for strengthening in order to improve the overall readiness to use information for action in the states. This diagnosis was supplemented through qualitative analysis to further probe into ―the why‖ of the performance of the states at various rankings and what could be done to improve matters. The readiness matrix,12 arguably, could be used by researchers in other settings to help diagnose key areas that need to be strengthened in order to improve information use, and also evaluate where a state is in terms of its maturity towards the same. While progress was noted in areas of data coverage in that some sporadic examples of information use were present and enhancements in capacity and infrastructure were accumulating, challenges still remained. Key ones included poor data quality, the unfulfilled promise of integration and a continuing weak culture of information use. Some key strategies identified to address these challenges included the promotion of decentralization of information to support decentralized action, the adoption of a data warehouse approach and strengthening collaborative networks. Achieving this however, requires some structural interventions such as the broad basing of education in public health informatics, institutionalization of a cadre of public health informatics staff within the Ministry of Health, and promoting the use of software which is open source and based on open standards such that widespread local use is supported.

The focus of this thesis is the factorial survey approach as a method for studying professional judgements in social work. The factorial survey approach, which was first introduced in the social sciences around the beginning of the 1980s, constitutes an advanced method for measuring human judgements of social objects. At the general level, this quasi-experimental approach involves presenting respondents with fictive descriptions of social objects (vignettes), in which selected characteristics describing the objects to be judged are simultaneously manipulated. This thesis consists of four studies: In Study I, I explore the general use of the factorial survey approach in sociology between 1982 and 2006. Study II and Study III consist of factorial survey applications in the field of professional judgement in Swedish substance misuse treatment, as organized by the social services. To be more specific, the aims of these papers are to disentangle predictors of social work practitioners’ choices of inpatient or outpatient substance misuse treatment (Study II), and of social work practitioners’ judgements about eligibility for compulsory care (Study III). Finally, in Study IV, I present a conceptual and an analytical framework for the application of the factorial survey approach to the study of professional judgements in social work.

The aim of this study was to create an understanding about what kind of knowledge social workers, that work in social services, use in determining a child's participation in an investigation with the focus on the child's maturity and age. We also had the aim to get an understanding about if the reasoning about a child's maturity could lead to learning. With a qualitative approach and with semi structured interviews, seven social workers were interviewed. We were inspired of an hermeneutical approach. As the theoretical starting point, the concepts of knowledge, discretion and learning were used to analyze our data.  The conclusion of this study was that social workers use a combination of several knowledge forms when assessing children's participation based on maturity. Tacit knowledge, scientific knowledge and institutionalized knowledge were used mainly to gather information to assess the maturity of the children. Articulated knowledge and bodily knowledge were used in the reasoning in how to make children participated. The use of several forms of knowledge in combination with the reasoning of children's participation based on maturation leads to learning. However, the social workers implied that the children's participation wasn’t depending on maturity, rather that maturity only determined in which way the child was going to be participated.

Knowledge matters in politics and a wide range of factors influence politicians’ use of research. One element that has been identified as relevant is the media. However, this has mainly been a theoretical conclusion, in want of empirical underpinning. In this thesis the topic is examined intensively through a quasi-experimental comparison and a mechanism tracing. The cases in focus are the Swedish earned income tax credit and surplus goal, and the concrete hypotheses concern whether the intensity and cohesion of the media coverage of research influence politicians' references to knowledge in debates. The results of the comparison suggest that there is a correlation between the intensity of the media coverage and the use of references in debates, whereas it is harder to say anything about the cohesion. Furthermore, a series of mechanisms explaining the relationship in detail are proposed. Among these is one indicating that vote maximi-sation encourages alignment of knowledge use with the media coverage, and another illuminating the practice of cherry-picking research results that are mentioned in the press. The conclusions thus not only tell us something about how the media influences knowledge use, but also advance the debate on symbolic knowledge use among politicians.

知識管理是近年國內外公、私部門甚為流行的管理方法，無論在學術與實務界，對於知識管理已有相當豐富之研究與實務經驗，包括知識管理的導入、實施策略、知識分享、知識創新、知識管理系統的設計等。惟在當前知識管理的文獻中，鮮少針對公部門知識利用現況與影響知識利用因素進行深入探究。本研究認為，知識管理的最終目的在於將知識付諸實現，始能產生知識的價值，而非僅是知識的累積。基此，本研究以公部門知識利用作為深入探討的焦點，藉由文獻分析法及檢視個案知識利用現況，歸納影響知識利用之因素，試圖建構公部門知識利用之模式。同時，經由對個案成員進行之深度訪談，深入瞭解個案成員對知識利用的認知及實際應用知識的行為。希冀藉由本研究發現公部門利用內、外部知識可能存在的問題，並提出具體建議供個案或其他公部門參考，俾使知識管理得以務實、有效且永續地發展。 本研究經文獻檢閱，將影響公部門知識利用之因素分從組織文化、組織成員、知識內涵及知識利用技術等四大面向探討，並輔以深度訪談與個案分析後，有以下發現： 一、影響公部門成員知識利用的因素：1.組織文化面向，包括開放性、同儕與主管影響、合作信任氛圍、管理者的授權；2.組織成員面向，包括知識接受者的態度、判斷能力、人際關係、任務性質、時間、習慣、知識提供者的可近性；3.知識面向，包括相對優勢、相容性、複雜性、可觀察性、可試驗性；4.技術面向，包括知識系統的易用性、相容性、輸出品質（儲存、更新及呈現的形式）、知識庫存量及整合性、知識社群的效能、工作者整理知識的技術。 二、知識利用的現況：整體而言，利用組織內部的知識是成員必備的認知、能力與習慣，且透過機關提供之知識利用管道大致能找到日常工作需要的知識。另外，對於與業務有關的外部知識亦趨重視，惟不同單位對外部知識之重視程度則有不同。 本研究最後按所歸納之四大面向，分述個案在知識利用上存在的問題，並提出具體改進建議。 / Recent years, knowledge management (KM) is a very popular way of management in the public or private organization domestically and internationally. Whether in the academic field or practical area, there are abundant research and experience, including introduction of KM, implementing strategy, sharing and innovation of knowledge, design of knowledge management system and so on. Currently, public sectors do not have enough research to find out what are the factors influencing the knowledge utilization. My study acknowledges the ultimate purpose of KM is to put knowledge into practice, and to create the true value of the knowledge, instead of merely accumulation of that. My study focuses on the utilization of KM by public sector through document analysis and case study, induces factors for knowledge utilization, and attempts to build a model of knowledge utilization in government organization. In the meantime, by thorough interview with individuals in the case, we can understand the members’ acknowledgement and practical behavior of knowledge utilization. I hope my study would find out problems while exploiting internal or external knowledge in public sector and provide concrete advice to individual in the case study and different government authorities for reference resources in order to develop a more practical, effective and continual knowledge management. Through reviewing document, this study discusses factors that influence the knowledge utilization from four areas: organization culture, organization members, knowledge contents and modern technology. Through the thorough interview and case study, my study discovers the following conclusions. 1.The factors influencing the knowledge utilization: (1) organization culture: including openness, the influence of coworkers and managers, atmosphere of cooperation and trust, and empowerment of managers; (2) organization members: including the members’ attitude of accepting knowledge, good judgment, interpersonal relationships, the nature of the mandate, time, habits, accessibility of knowledge providers; (3) knowledge contents: including relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and trial ability; (4) modern technology: including ease of use, compatibility, the output quality (storage, update and displaying forms), a rich stock of knowledge base and integration of the knowledge systems, the effectiveness of the knowledge community, workers’ techniques of organizing knowledge. 2. The current condition of using knowledge: generally speaking, every member of the organization requires having the ability and habit to utilize the internal knowledge. The members are capable to use the information provided by the organization and develop the necessary knowledge to find the appropriate approaches to accomplish their daily work. In addition, job related external knowledge will get more emphasis, except the different departments look at the importance of external knowledge differently. Finally, according to this study, problems can be identified in the knowledge utilization of the case from the above-mentioned four areas that I have summed up, and offer suggestions for improvement.