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Using the moral principle of acting responsibly and with integrity, explain how the researcher's actions failed to meet their professional obligations and describe the broader consequences of these actions.
Case context: A researcher is conducting a study on anxiety levels in college students. Due to a lack of preparation, they administer a poorly formatted survey that confuses participants, leading to invalid data. Additionally, the researcher publishes the study claiming they achieved a 95% response rate when it was actually 45%, and they share raw spreadsheet files containing participants' names despite having explicitly promised them strict confidentiality.
Question: Using the moral principle of acting responsibly and with integrity, explain how the researcher's actions failed to meet their professional obligations and describe the broader consequences of these actions.
Sample answer: The researcher failed to act responsibly and with integrity by not conducting their study competently or thoroughly (due to the poorly prepared survey) and by not acting truthfully (by reporting a false response rate). They also violated participant trust by failing to keep their promise of confidentiality. The consequences of these violations are that scientific resources are wasted on invalid data, trust is broken among participants and the scientific community, and it can ultimately lead to severe societal harm.
Key points:
- Conducting incompetent research wastes scientific resources.
- Reporting dishonestly (lying about response rates) violates truthfulness.
- Failing to keep confidentiality promises violates trust and fails to minimize harm.
- Violating integrity leads to severe societal harm and damages trust with participants, the scientific community, and society.
Rubric: The response must explain: 1) The failure to work competently/thoroughly (poor survey preparation). 2) The failure to work truthfully (falsifying response rates). 3) The violation of participant trust (breaching confidentiality promises). 4) The consequences (wasted scientific resources, broken trust, and potential societal harm).
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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