Psychologist as ethics educator: Successes, failures, and unanswered questions.

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the literature documenting ethics education over the last 35 years, discussing changes in instructional methodology, current course content, and the empirical literature relevant to the outcomes of ethics education. This analysis reveals several gaps in the ethics competencies of students. The article next describes the results of a national survey of the views of 101 internship directors on the ethical capabilities of predoctoral interns in psychology. In contrast to ethics researchers, internship directors rate the ethics knowledge of psychology interns highly. It ends with a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of current knowledge and directions for future research.

Ethics Education: Recommendations for an Evolving Discipline

“…Vanek's correlational comparison between counseling and clinical psychology is less important than her descriptive organization of the scope of ethics education; instructional practices, materials, organization, goals, content, and evaluation measures were all included in this survey, conveying a snapshot of the discipline in counseling and clinical psychology. These three studies, along with Welfel's (1992) a clear duty of CACREP-accredited counselor education programs to protect the public from unprepared and underprepared professional counselors (CACREP, 2001), a core task for the fledgling field of ethics education in counselor education is to describe its parameters and characteristics.…”

“…A detailed review of content and outcomes in ethics education was produced by Welfel (1992). Prior to the current study, only three studies (Stadler & Paul, 1986;Vanek, 1990;Welfel & Hannigan-Farley, 1996) have focused on teaching ethics in counselor education or related fields.…”

“…Studies of the ethical behaviors of practitioners have enriched this knowledge base (Gibson & Pope, 1993;Pope, Tabachnick, & Keith-Spiegel, 1987)' yet it remains unclear what impact teaching ethics has on the ethics of students compared with other possible explanations for counselor behavior. Studies of student satisfaction (Coll, 1993;Fine & Ulrich, 1988;Wilson & Ranft, 1993) and ethical knowledge (Welfel, 1992;Welfel & Hannigan-Farley, 1996) have been conducted, but only one study was conducted directly in counselor education. Welfel and Hannigan-Farley reported high student satisfaction with ethical knowledge gained but indicated that little is known about whether students' confidence in their knowledge is appropriate; the extent to which student satisfaction is evidence of the quality of ethics education is questionable.…”

“…There is broad agreement among counselor educators that students should be cognizant of ethically charged issues and should have the capacity to work through these issues (Welfel, 1992). Many studies relating to professional ethics have emerged since the 1980s.…”

Issues and Insights: Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, and Counseling Ethics: Not an Abstraction

“…The APA began mandating ethics education in its accreditation standards in 1979 (Welfel, 1992). The accreditation standards of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP; require that ethical considerations be included in each of the eight common-core areas; CACREP, however, does not spec+ what should be taught or how ethics should be addressed, indicating only that "the ethical standards of ACA and related entities and applications of ethical and legal considerations in professional counseling" (p. 61) should be included.…”