The present article explores ethical issues that emerge in qualitative research conducted by applied psychologists. The utility and relevance of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2002) for qualitative research are examined. The importance of psychology's fiduciary relationship with research participants is presented as the basis for an ethical stance of "trustworthiness." A scientist-practitioner perspective on research ethics is advanced, based on the argument that psychology's social role carries obligations that differ from those of other social science disciplines that conduct qualitative research. Dilemmas that are likely to emerge in qualitative research are discussed, with particular attention to competence, multiple relationships, confidentiality, and informed consent.I thank Joseph Ponterotto and Susan Morrow for discussions that advanced my thinking on axiology and qualitative research paradigms.
Counselling psychology, established in 1987 as a specialization within Canadian professional psychology, has developed a distinctive identity and specific underlying approach to training and practice. To date, the field in Canada has evolved without benefit of a formal definition of the specialization. Over three years, a task force charged with development of a definition of Canadian counselling psychology engaged in a broad survey of extant literature and member consultation, and proposed a definition that was adopted by the Board of Directors of the Canadian Psychological Association in June 2009. The present work discusses the process that informed development of the definition, provides a description of the characteristics of a Canadian counselling psychology approach to research and practice, and enumerates challenges to the continued development of the specialization.
Unweighted multidimensional scaling (MDS) analyses were used to investigate whether J. L. Holland's (1985) theoretical structure of interests described the interest structures for 2 cultural groups and for genders within those groups. The intercorrelation matrices of the Strong Interest Inventory General Occupational Themes, for samples of female and male Asian-American and White-American university students were submitted separately to MDS analysis. Metric, 2-dimensional solutions for each sample demonstrated that a circumplex structure underlay the interest domain for all 4 groups. Results were mixed in support of the hexagonal structure and the Realistic-Investigative-Artistic-Social-Enterprising-Conventional ordering suggested by Holland's theory. Possible explanations and implications of these results are discussed within the context of existing research on Asian cultural thought and practice.
Hypothesis testing strategies exhibited by 65 counseling trainees were assessed after the trainees viewed and responded to a videotaped client-counselor interaction. Participants' hypothesis testing strategies were assessed for both a client-identified (experimenter-provided) and a counselor self-generated hypothesis about the client's problem. Results for the client-identified hypotheses failed to support either the previous finding of a strong neutral hypothesis testing strategy (e.g., D. C. Hayden, 1987;D. C. Strohmer & A. L. Chiodo, 1984) or the predicted confirmatory bias. Results for the self-generated hypotheses did reveal a strong confirmatory tendency across 5 analogue interviewing behaviors-with mean response percentages of 64% confirmatory, 21% neutral, and 15% disconfirmatory-and contradict prior research indicating that counselors do not exhibit a confirmatory bias in hypothesis testing.The counseling trainee who meets a new client is faced with a complex, highly ambiguous task in attempting to discern that client's problem. For the counselor, problem identification is an inferential task that involves drawing on current knowledge and intuition in generating and then testing a hypothesis about a client's concern. As Leary and Miller (1986) pointed out, Counselors are not simply the passive recipients of whatever information their clients wish to divulge. Rather, they actively seek information, integrate that information to form ideas about the client and his or her dysfunction, and seek to test their hunches by gathering new information, (p. 135)Research in social psychology has found that inferential decisions are frequently characterized by systematic error. Work by Snyder and his colleagues (Snyder & Campbell, 1980;Snyder, Campbell, & Preston, 1982;Snyder & Swann, 1978;Swann & Giuliano, 1987) has demonstrated that people are susceptible to a confirmatory bias in gathering information to test their hunches, or hypotheses, about others. Confirmatory bias is one of three hypothesis testing strategies that may characterize a perceiver's information search (Pepinsky & Pepinsky, 1954;Popper, 1959) and can be defined as a search for information that is consistent with the This article is based on Beth E. Haverkamp's doctoral dissertation, completed under the supervision of Jo-Ida C. Hansen at the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.