The paper stresses the need for the social work profession to develop a research paradigm that is humane and holistic and maintains a balance between exploratory research and confirmatory research and, between qualitative research and quantitative research. It is recommended that special importance may be given to practice-based research in the MSW curriculum so that practitioners can link research to practise. Finally, such a research curriculum is proposed in this paper, with its goals, objectives, scope and essential components of course work, field exercises and research seminars.

KEYWORDS: paradigm, confirmatory approach,