Could they help to improve policy and/or practice? What are the implications of the methodologies used for policy and practice?

Social work foundations of research

You need to search for/locate two contrasting pieces of primary research in this field: (i) they do not need to have exactly the same aims (ii) a quantitative study “versus” a qualitative study is a good idea (iii) you need to understand their respective methodologies .
A suggestion: use the table  to help you to analyse the two pieces of research. Compare and contrast their respective aims; epistemologies; methodologies and methods; samples/subjects; data and analysis; ethics.
Make sure you are clear about the epistemological, methodological and ethical issues raised in each piece. You need to discuss these differences.
Make sure you have read about contrasting epistemologies, e.g. positivism” versus” interpretivism.
Make sure you have read about the different methodologies/methods used in each piece of research, e.g. use a textbook such as Clark et al.  or any other which has chapters on various methodologies/methods. If one of your examples is, say, an ethnography, then read about ethnographic research approaches and methods. If it’s a survey, make sure you understand survey approaches.
Think and read about the implications for social work policy, practice and future research of the studies’ (i) findings and (ii) methodologies. Have the findings influenced policy and practice and/or how could they? Could they help to improve policy and/or practice? What are the implications of the methodologies used for policy and practice? E.g. do some methodologies dominate the field? Has one the methodologies analysed contributed a particularly novel or challenging set of findings/claims? Why? Do we need more research? Of what kind and why? What kind of power dynamics are raised in the research and how can research challenge oppression?