Deck 3: Ethics in Counseling Research: Being and Doing Right

Question 1

Kitchener and Anderson (2011) suggested nine principles for responding to ethical dilemmas faced by a researcher. One of the principles states that:

A) a researcher should slow down to reflect on a situation and come up with a calculated response when faced with an ethical dilemma.
B) a researcher should avoid referring to previous articles to prevent biases from creeping into his or her research design.
C) a researcher should consider routinely assessing the psychological adjustment and reaction of the participants involved in a study in various ways.
D) a researcher should be true to the spirit of creation of new knowledge and not let assumptions of other colleagues cloud his or her judgment.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Researchers are not obliged to provide treatment to the participants placed in the delayed-treatment group.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Which of the following is recommended while assigning publication credits for the contributions to a research project?

A) The order of authorship should be decided according to the decreasing order of the scholarly contributions of the researchers.
B) People who organized or conducted statistical analysis should be credited in the footnotes.
C) Faculty advisor who provides encouragement and technical assistance in designing the study should be named first author.
D) The first author should be authorized to decide the order of authorship to minimize potential differences of opinions among the contributors.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The fundamental ethical principle of justice states that all people, irrespective of their differences, should be treated equally.

Question 5

Which of the following is true of the guidelines by American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Committee (1983) for dissertations?

A) First authorship is acceptable if a supervisor is substantially involved in the development of the design and measurement procedures.
B) Second authorship may be considered obligatory if a supervisor designates the primary variables, makes major interpretative contributions, or provides the database.
C) First authorship is a courtesy if a supervisor provides encouragement, physical facilities, financial support, critiques, or editorial contributions.
D) Second authorship is unacceptable if a supervisor merely designates the general area of concern.

Question 6

In context of the issue of confidentiality, if someone other than the experimenter will have access to data, this should be explained to the participants along with plans for maintaining confidentiality.

Question 7

When reporting results, it is a researcher's responsibility to:

A) present just the facts and leave the interpretation to the stakeholders to reduce bias.
B) privately acknowledge contributions of all people involved in a study.
C) report findings and present them in a way that is clear and understandable to readers.
D) filter out research results that do not support a particular theory.

Question 8

The effectiveness of debriefing may vary with each study or experimenter.

Question 9

A researcher's idea developed from a blend of pre-existing ideas can be considered genuine.

Question 10

Identify an element that needs to be stated in a written consent form to document the informed agreement of a participant for a study.

A) A description of the researcher's scholarly achievements
B) The set of ethical guidelines called Code of Ethics, developed by the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American Psychological Association (APA)
C) A statement indicating voluntary participation and option of discontinuation without penalty
D) The financial benefits to the family of the participant

Question 11

Nonmaleficence, one of the five fundamental ethical principles, states that researchers:

A) should not inflict intentional harm to participants and avoid the risk of harming others.
B) should assign participants from waiting list to delayed-treatment groups.
C) should treat unequals unequally only in proportion to their relevant differences.
D) should present the facts of how a study is going to be executed.

Question 12

Even if a researcher employs other individuals, such as research assistants, the primary researcher is ultimately responsible for the execution of a research study.

Question 13

All the fundamental ethical principles that form the core of counseling profession have undergone transformations with continual changes based on new developments in society and advancements in collective ethical knowledge.

Question 14

During the resolution of an ethical dilemma in counseling research, a counselor should document the entire decision-making process.

Question 15

Which of the following courses of action is recommended in order to assess and weigh the risk/benefit ratio of a study?

A) Selecting only those participants who have certain characteristics that make them more resistant to the risks involved in the study
B) Being self-assured and impervious to the views of colleagues that may introduce biases
C) Always giving more weightage to societal benefits than individual costs while designing a research experiment
D) Taking the worldview and the cultural background of the researcher into consideration while assessing risks involved in the study

Question 16

Researchers are exempted from the need to document consent of the participants when they are observing public behavior.

Question 17

Counselors have a responsibility to conduct research that contributes to welfare for their clients. This statement corresponds to the ethical principle of _____.

A) nonmaleficence
B) fidelity
C) beneficence
D) justice

Question 18

Which of the following statements is true of duplicate publications?

A) Similar questions getting addressed with the same data are acceptable due to the absence of intention of duplication.
B) Multiple articles reporting the same findings based on the same data set may give an impression of availability of more information on a particular topic than is warranted.
C) Duplicate publications are always synonymous with piecemeal publications.
D) Multiple reports on the same data set would be unacceptable, irrespective of the amount of time elapsed.

Question 19

A counselor conducts a study in her private practice. She offers free counseling services to 25 of her clients who agree to participate in the study. However, after 8 weeks of multiple free counseling sessions for each of the participants in the study, she realized that she could no longer financially afford it. Hence she asks all her clients, regardless of study participation, to resume payment for services offered. Which of the following ethical principles did the counselor transgress in this scenario?

A) Confidentiality
B) Fidelity
C) Autonomy
D) Beneficence

Question 20

In context of the use of deception in psychological studies, greater consideration should be given to the acts of omission than to the acts of commission.