Selected Recent Articles About Chinese Instrument/Scale Development and Intervention Research

Abstract

We are pleased to present this special edition of Research on Social Work Practice based upon a set of recent selected empirical studies on Chinese instrument/scale development and intervention research. Specifically, these selected articles reflected the types of designs submitted for publication to Research on Social Work Practice in 2015-2016 and also their methodological quality. Prior to presenting introductory comments about these articles, we would be remiss not briefly contextualizing the state of the social work research in China and Hong Kong. China the country and Hong Kong a geographically designated special administrative region within it have seen much growth in the past two to three decades. The landmark Sino-British Joint Declaration transferred the sovereignty of Hong Kong back to China on July 1, 1997, after 100 years of British rule, under the current idealized ''one country, two systems'' agreement. Hong Kong and Mainland China have undergone considerable growing pains both separately and together. Social work was first introduced to China in the 1920s but was eliminated in the early 1950s by the Communist government. After almost 30 years, it was restored to the university curriculum in 1988 because social service was deemed useful in addressing social problems triggered by the introduction of the ''Open-Door'' economic policy of China (Yuen Tsang & Wang, 2008). In 2006, the 16th Central Committee meeting of the Chinese Communist Party released a document which stated the necessity to establish ''a grand team of professional social workers'' to help in building a more harmonious society. This marked a new chapter for the development of social work in China (Yuen Tsang & Wang, 2008). At present, it is estimated that there are at least 310 tertiary education institutes that have a social work undergraduate program and about 104 with a social work masters' program in China (Sim & Lau, 2016). Nonetheless, to date, intervention research is not well developed in China. Sim and Lau (2016) analyzed the content of n ¼ 206 practice research articles in Chinese journals published in the Peoples' Republic of China since 1915 and found that only a few studies used quasi-experimental designs (3.4%) and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (1.9%). Compared to Mainland China, Hong Kong has much fewer government-funded/supported universities. Hong Kong has

Using Online Methods to Develop and Examine the Hong Kong Chinese Translation of the Dissociative Experiences Scale

“…First, the process of cross-cultural adaptation of scale involves translation, backtranslation, and testing the bilingual version using bilingual subjects (Beaton, Bombardier, Guillemin, & Ferraz, 2000;C. Chan & Holosko, 2017;Sousa, Zauszniewski, Mendes, & Zanetti, 2005), local university students can serve as a convenient participant pool participant pool to help examine translated instruments.…”