1. Identify the potential ethical violations or issues in the scenario, and then
ID: 3495061 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Identify the potential ethical violations or issues in the scenario, and then provide a detailed rationale for why you identified one such violation or issue.
2. Evaluate the potential consequences for the individual’s actions, using specific examples to support your claims.
3. Acknowledge a seemingly sensible rebuttal or counterargument to your position, and then assess its merits.
4. Defend your position throughout your essay by intergrading a reasonable assessment of the ethical principles you considered in your evaluation of the case study (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and fidelity).
Dr. Joe Smith is a research psychologist working as an assistant professor in a large research university. One requirement for tenure is to publish research studies in peer-reviewed journals. Since Joe is better at teaching than he is at research, he has naturally let the research and publishing piece of his requirement for employment slip. Suddenly, Joe is reaching the deadline to publish.
Joe creates a research study to evaluate students’ relative satisfaction with adapting to the college environment. He submits his proposal and Institutional Review Board (IRB) application to the dean and the IRB, and both approve Joe’s research study. Joe then commences his research.
According to his power analysis, Joe needs 250 participants. Since Joe is short on time, he convinces a graduate student who proctors a psychology lab to give him access to each lab along with making participation in the study mandatory for passing the lab. Joe rapidly accumulates participants to complete his online survey. Of the 300 students who are made to take the survey, 30 students refuse and received a failing grade for the psychology lab.
Joe then crunches the data and discovers to his dismay that it does not meet his expected outcomes. To make the data fit his desired and politically correct outcomes, Joe modifies the data. Working feverishly, Joe completes his report and submits it for publication with a well-respected journal just before the deadline.
Explanation / Answer
1. Identify the potential ethical violations or issues in the scenario, and then provide a detailed rationale for why you identified one such violation or issue.
Joe, being short on time has tried to use shortcuts to to complete his research,. He made participation in the lab mandatory for passing and coincidentally, students who denied had failed. Also, since his data did not fit his expected outcomes, he manipulated the results. This is a violation of ethics since he cannot force people to participate in his study, there is no respect for autonomy and he is punishing students for taking their own decisions, which is wrong.
2. Evaluate the potential consequences for the individual’s actions, using specific examples to support your claims.
The Individuals who have refused to participate in the study, have been failed. This is wrong as the professor is not letting the students decide what they really want.
3. Acknowledge a seemingly sensible rebuttal or counterargument to your position, and then assess its merits.
According to me, Dr. Joe smith I wrong. He is not doing justice to his students on the basis of their merits, rather he is using them to meet his research deadlines and harming them (maleficence), for not willing to participate in his research. Moreover, he has manipulated the results according to his convenience, posing a doubt to his fidelity.
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