title: Curricular Approaches in Research Ethics Education: Reflecting on More and Less Effective Practices in Instructional Content.
abstract: Over the past decade, the effectiveness of ethics education programs has increased with regard to trainee outcomes, such as knowledge, awareness, and ethical decision making. However, despite the overall improvement in training effectiveness, considerable variability still exists across programs. One potential source of variability arises from the substantial range in instructional training content utilized across ethics training courses. The goal of the present effort was to clarify which approaches in ethics education result in positive training outcomes through the identification of instructional content themes. Through a qualitative review of ethics training courses, we identified key themes in instructional content curriculum associated with effective courses: domain-general, domain-specific, standard compliance, professionalism, and process-based. In addition, we identified key themes associated with less effective courses: mixed-specificity, narrow coverage, and idealized ethics. Descriptions and key characteristics of each theme along with example courses are provided. Implications of the content themes for ethics education are discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Brett S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Torrence
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Logan L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Watts
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Tyler J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Mulhearn
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Megan R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: E Michelle
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Todd
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Mumford
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Oklahoma , Norman , Oklahoma , USA.
authors.forename: Shane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Connelly
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D003657:Decision Making; D032984:Ethics, Research; D006801:Humans
keywords: Ethics; ethics content; ethics education; ethics training; instructional content; responsible conduct of research