Date Approved

5-7-2008

Embargo Period

3-20-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in School Psychology

Department

Educational Services and Leadership

College

College of Education

Advisor

Epifanio, Frank

Subject(s)

College students--Professional ethics; Psychology--Study and teaching

Disciplines

Educational Psychology

Abstract

The initial driving force of this study was to examine the knowledge and familiarity of undergraduate psychology-major students at Rowan University with the American Psychological Association's code of ethics or ethics code. An adapted version of a 1982 questionnaire containing vignettes of clinical and research situations that required 'ethical' decision-making processes was used. The original questionnaire and design of the study were conceived by Tymchuck et al. For purposes of the current study, however, the original vignettes were slightly adapted in order to fit neatly into the APA's 2002 code of ethics. Although the only statistically significant results showed that participants that had been enrolled in psychology courses that dealt with ethics and more specifically the APA Code of Ethics, scored higher on the test meaning that they made less ethical choices in general, the sample size needed to be larger for any generalization of the results to be even considered.

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