Date of Award

6-1990

Document Type

Field Project

Degree Name

Specialist in Education (Ed.S.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Robert H. Woody

Second Advisor

Richard Wikoff

Third Advisor

Jane D. Woody

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate school psychologists' perception of the utility to published ethics codes on ethical decision making. Subjects were randomly chosen for this national survey based on their membership in the National Association of School Psychologists. Subjects were presented 25 dilemmas based on specific ethical codes published by the American Psychological Association and National Association of School Psychologists. Respondents were asked whether they had encountered similar dilemmas in the past two years and how well ethical codes had prepared them to solve each dilemma. Respondents indicated that they had experienced few of the dilemmas in the recent past and perceived themselves to be well prepared to solve similar dilemmas. Prior experience solving similar dilemmas was significantly associated with subjects' level of preparedness to solve some dilemmas but not all. Sex, age, highest degree obtained, or number of years experience in school psychology was not found to be significantly related to the respondents' perception of preparedness to solve dilemmas on their prior experience with dilemmas. Familiarity with the American Psychological Association ethics code, but not the National Association of School Psychologists ethics code was found to be related to the respondents' prior experience with dilemmas. Familiarity with either code was not significantly related to the respondents' perception of preparedness to solve ethical dilemmas. Future investigations are needed to explore the relationship between ethics training and the nature of the code itself on the process of ethical decision making.

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