Moral Codes and
Ethical Principles
What is the relation of
moral codes and ethical principles to legal regulations? What is the
relation of the ethical codes that are operative with professional
researchers in some disciplines to ethical principles?
Many researchers appear
to think that as long as the IRB review process has been cleared then all
is as well as can be expected. There is the equating of morality with
compliance with legal regulations.
Law and Morality: the
relationship
Morality- rules of right
conduct concerning matters of greater importance. Violations of such can
bring disturbance to individual conscience and social sanctions.
Law- rules which are
enforced by society. Violations may bring a loss of or reduction in
freedom and possessions.
What is the relation of
law to morality? They are not the same and thus you can not equate the
two. Just because something is immoral does not make it illegal and just
because something is illegal it does not make it immoral. There are many
examples to support this view as being obviously true.
Things that are
illegal but are thought to be moral (for many)!
·
Drinking
under age.
·
Driving
over the speed limit.
·
Smoking
marijuana.
·
Cheating on
a tax return.
·
Splitting a
cable signal to send it to more than one television.
People do not think of
themselves or of others as being immoral for breaking these laws.
Things that are
immoral (for many) but are not illegal.
·
Cheating on
your spouse.
·
Breaking a
promise to a friend.
·
Using
abortion as a birth control measure.
People can not be
arrested or punished with imprisonment or fines for doing these things.
What is the relation of
morality to law? Well, when enough people think that something is immoral
they will work to have a law that will forbid it and punish those that do
it. When enough people think that something is moral, they will work to
have a law that forbids it and punishes those that do it repealed. So it
is established that: Legal Standards are NOT the same as Moral
Standards
In Education there is,
for example:
·
Deciding who
to educate by what methodologies
·
Deciding how
much to charge for an education
·
Deciding on
methods of compensation for educators
·
Using drugs
with specific learners in classroom environments
·
Use of
screening devices and high stakes tests
These questions involve
moral issues but the law does not specify a particular course of conduct.
Law codifies customs, ideals, beliefs and moral values in society. Law
does not establish moral criteria or standards.
Oaths and Codes
Educators and researchers belong to professional organizations. They
take oaths at graduation ceremonies and at inductions into professional
societies. Are these effective in providing guidance for educators
confronted with moral dilemmas and problems? Apparently not.
Educators and researchers have codes of conduct issued by professional
societies and organizations and even by state authorities. Are these not
effective in resolving moral dilemmas and providing a moral guide?
Apparently not.
New York State Code of Ethics for Educators. 2004.
http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/resteachers/codeofethics.htm
Oaths and codes are
products of a pre- technological age. They hearken back towards the
medieval guilds. They focus on the welfare of the guild and its members
above all else and then on the accomplishment of that for which members of
the guild are trained to do.
In Education the problems
with such codes are numerous:
1. There is
a marked emphasis on obtaining data within legal limits concerning the
efficacy of pedagogy and no attention to other aims of educators. In this
they are out of date in not considering let alone providing guidance for
providing education while conducting pedagogic research and exercising
social responsibility.
2. They are
issued in language which is quite general. The generality is associated
with both ambiguity and vagueness and in need of interpretation in order
to determine a meaning precise enough and relevant to particular
situations.
3. They do
not anticipate changes in practice and organizational patterns and leave
the problem of how to resolve conflicts unanswered.
4. They do
not acknowledge the underlying values upon which they rest. They give no
insight into the basic ethical principles from which moral rules and
guidance can be derived.
In examining the codes
for various groups of researchers involved in education it is fairly easy
to realize a number of problems exist with them:
1. Conflict
with one another and even internally
2. The
professional code often conflicts with the individual professionals own
moral beliefs with no guidance for resolving the conflict
3. The
codes do not cover all situations and dilemmas
4. The
professional codes do not contain moral principles at all
Purpose of Oaths and
Codes
As the "moral" codes or "ethical" codes of conduct for professional
groups are not really ethical codes at all just what are they? They appear
to be codes of conduct intended to produce a particular set of results.
·
They are intended to bind
social groups together. They bring the professionals into a close knit
group.
·
They express aims and
aspirations of the group.
·
They promote integrity,
dedication and principled behavior in accord with the goals and aims of
the group.
The earliest of the codes are thus more oriented towards the group and
not towards anyone served by the group. It is no surprise then that
members of these groups feel a greater allegiance towards one another than
to those whose interests they ostensibly are to serve.
As modern science and technology have drastically changed the nature of
health care in the last one hundred years there has been a great need to
reexamine the very nature and value of such codes.
In a number of ways the impact of technology has been to cause people
to question the basic values involved with education. This questioning
naturally leads to an examination of basic ethical principles.
Professional Codes of Conduct and Common Sense are insufficient to
handle the problems that arise.
There are the problems
of:
-
Application of the Codes to actual
situations
-
Variety of codes from various professional
organizations that have no order of priority
-
Vagueness of codes making it difficult to
determine the precise meaning
-
Inconsistency, conflicting guidance in and
between codes
-
Questionable morality of the codes , e.g.,
on privacy, exposure to risk, denial of autonomy
The Professional codes have more to do with etiquette, social and
economic niceties and maintaining a monopoly than with morality.
Codes are not normative; they are anachronistic and are thus
objectionable. Codes and oaths establish a special relationship amongst
those who take it that sets them apart from the general public. It
establishes a relationship of debt and obligation amongst the
professionals. Towards the recipients of their care the oath establishes
a relationship of largess. There is the need for moral principles grounded
in ethical theory and not in some form of social etiquette or set of
voluntary arrangements.
Oaths and codes cannot take the place of ethical theory and principle as
providing a foundation for moral decision making and action.
Therefore, there is the definite and pronounced need for ethical theory
and guidance in applying ethical theory to specific moral dilemmas and
problems.
Ethical Concerns
related to Pedagogic Research
From Hutchings--
Is
it necessary to have permission to use excerpts from student papers, or
data from their exams, in my scholarship of teaching and learning?
If
so, what kind of permission is appropriate, and how should it be secured?
Should I (must I?) submit my project design to the campus Institutional
Review Board (IRB), which monitors work with human subjects?
Do
I need their informed consent to begin my work? To publish it?
The
scholarship of teaching and learning calls on us to “make teaching
community property” (Lee Shulman’s phrase), but what are the appropriate
boundaries between public and private?
Who own what goes on in the classroom?
Who
benefits, and who is at risk, when the complex dynamics of teaching and
learning are documented and publicly represented?
Potential for Harm
How is to be resolved
that any new pedagogy might result in harm to some of the learners
involved with it or subject to it?
How is it justifiable to
subject learners to potential harm by requiring that they get involved
with sets of experiences with which they have no prior experiences?
How is it possible to
arrange for research subjects to withdraw from participation in a
pedagogic experiment when doing so constitutes harm or exposes them to
further harm such as a loss of credits or progress towards the next level
or grade?
How is it justified to
continue to use pedagogies that are indicated to be less effective, if not
harmful, than others that have been shown to be more effective?
If there is a control
group involved in pedagogic research and the experimental group is
performing better and learning more should the control group continue on
using what becomes more and more apparent as a lees effective pedagogic
technique?
Experimental
Design and Methodology
How are conflicts
between the role of educator-teacher and that of educator-researcher to be
resolved? Must the experiment be done? Must it continue the full course
of the original plan?
How does being a
participant in a pedagogic experiment influence what the learner does?
Does it work against establishing claims that the results are replicable
under similar circumstances of the learners without consideration of their
status as self conscious research subjects?
Informed Consent
How is it possible to
obtain an informed consent or its equivalent when there are no other
options available to the learner? There is only the one class?
How informed can
informed consent be with learners who are very young or unfamiliar with
all the implications of the work?
How consensual can
informed consent be when the educator-researcher holds so much influence
and power over the learner-subject?
How is it possible to
obtain an informed consent or its equivalent when the context is one of a
total institution wherein choices are severely limited and exercising an
option out of the research exposes the learner to loss of some benefit or
to some harm? Is it proper to require students to participate in the
research or to conduct research on themselves and their peers as part of a
course requirement?
How does informing
learners that they are part of an experiment influence their work and skew
the results that are meant to be generalized to all similar cases of
learners and not just to experimental subjects?
How much time and how
many resources should be devoted to research with a group of learners when
compared to continuing with the proven effective pedagogy already in
place? Does such research necessarily degrade or put at risk the quality
of the pedagogy already in place?
“The class is a
class first and a research laboratory second; the students are students
first and research subjects second. Under this view, and change in course
design or content to promote a research should be subject to the condition
that it at least not detract from the educational value of the course.
Peter Markie, quoted in ibid, p. 29
Privacy and
Confidentiality
How is the need to make
public the research balanced against the need to keep private the sources
of information?
How are the identities
of the learners to be safeguarded when the pedagogic technique being
tested has learners producing work that when the research is made public
can identify them?
How is a test site to be
kept confidential when the details of the testing site are relevant to a
careful and critical consideration of the finings and for any attempt to
apply the tested pedagogy in a similar setting? The details need to be
reported and yet doing so presents a possible exposure of the test
subjects.
How are reports of the
failures of learners or their initial starting points beset with
difficulties to be reported so as to not subject the learners to the
psychological harm caused by possible exposure and consequent
embarrassment?
To what extent should
the learner-subjects be acknowledged for their contributions to the
research?
To what extent must the
learner-subjects be acknowledged for their contributions to the research?
Under what circumstances is privacy to be protected while still
acknowledging the contributions made by the learner –subjects? How is it
possible to do both?
“Are the
transactions among students and faculty members, and the work that
students do in the classroom, a form of privileged communication,
analogous to the work of a therapist or lawyer? Or are they, in Shulman’s
phrase, ‘community property’”
Hutchings 2003, p. 31
Research Obligations
To
what extent are educators morally bound to conduct research into the
literature of pedagogy before attempting their own pedagogic experiments?
To
what extent are educators morally bound to conduct research themselves
involving experimental projects?
To
what extent are educators morally bound to publish their experiences and
findings with regard to pedagogic developments and research efforts?
“The
‘pedagogical imperative’ includes the obligation to inquire into the
consequences of one’s work with students. This is an obligation that
devolves on individual faculty member, on programs, on institutions, and
even on disciplinary communities.
Shulman 1992, p.
vii
Research
Strategies and Techniques
How is informed consent
to be obtained in research involving surveys where the consent procedure
would not influence the responses of those surveyed?
Paternalism
To what
extent can an educator exercise paternalism in the design, management and
conducting of pedagogic experiments with minors and the incapacitated
@copyright 2004 by S. Kincaid and P. Pecorino