Ethical Dilemma

Academic dishonesty in educational institutions is a cause for concern at present. In this paper, the prevalence and severity of various types of dishonest academic behaviors were determined based on the experiences and perceptions of college students. Self-reports on reasons for engaging in a type of cheating or plagiarism were also collected and analyzed to identify certain themes. Findings suggest that cheating on exams and homework is still prevalent, students view these dishonest behaviors as ordinary school acts, and their actions are a product of several factors-teacher's and student's incompetence, unfavorable environment, and lenient imposition of school policy. Certain ethical dilemmas were deduced from the results of the study, such as the varying perceptions on the morality of unfair academic manners and the relative importance of deceit over success.

Addressing spirituality in therapy is not only important for a substantial number of clients but many therapists also regard it as potentially valuable.However, practitioners report difficulties and confusion regarding how to work with spiritual difference, especially when clients’ spiritual beliefs are perceived as undermining their psychological well-being. The current study aimed to explore this challenge through the use of a qualitative design. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 practitioners and the transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three superordinate themes were discerned in the data: ‘therapists’ perception of clients’ spiritual beliefs: psychological understanding and impact’, ‘therapists’ aims and responsibilities: (in)compatibility with clients’ spiritual beliefs’ and ‘therapists’ practice responses to psychologically unhelpful spiritual beliefs: explicit and implicit approaches’. When clients’ spiritual beliefs were p...

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine ‘‘what is right’’. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entreprene...

Addressing spirituality in therapy is not only important for a substantial number of clients but many therapists also regard it as potentially valuable. However, practitioners report difficulties and confusion regarding how to work with spiritual difference, especially when clients’ spiritual beliefs are perceived as undermining their psychological well-being. The current study aimed to explore this challenge through the use of a qualitative design. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 practitioners and the transcripts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three superordinate themes were discerned in the data: ‘therapists’ perception of clients’ spiritual beliefs: psychological understanding and impact’, ‘therapists’ aims and responsibilities: (in)compatibility with clients’ spiritual beliefs’ and ‘therapists’ practice responses to psychologically unhelpful spiritual beliefs: explicit and implicit approaches’. When clients’ spiritual beliefs were perceived as psychologically unhelpful, therapists experienced a conflict between their ethical stance to respect clients’ beliefs and their aim to enhance psychological well-being. This conflict presented the greatest challenge for therapists working with different spiritual beliefs. Implications and recommendations for practice are considered and avenues for future research are highlighted. In particular, it is recommended for therapists to recognize this challenge as an ethical dilemma, to develop an ethical analytic framework and to reflect on their own beliefs within this framework.

In this study, Turkish ICT student teachers ’ judgments and justifications in four scenarios involving ICT-related ethical problems were investigated. Scenarios were designed based on Mason’s (1986) four ethical issues: privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. The study was carried out in the fall of 2010. We used the critical incidents technique (CIT)- a qualitative research approach- and the data were gathered via a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was conducted face-to-face with an in-person interview. Participants were 35 ICT student teachers from the Faculty of Educational Science at Ankara University. The associations between different categorical variables were analysed with Fisher’s exact test. Open-ended questions were analysed through content analysis. The findings revealed that gender does not affect the ethical judgments and justifications of ICT student teachers. Furthermore the same reasons and justifications were reported by ICT student teachers who h...

In recent years, triage practices in disaster management have been frequently discussed
in order to increase the effectiveness of the disaster response. Together with many different variables,
the effect of ethical dilemmas on triage practices is an important debate. In this study, it is
aimed to investigate the negative effect of ethical dilemmas on disaster triage. A questionnaire
study was conducted with 173 participants in order to evaluate ethical dilemmas in triage practices.
In the questionnaire study, population is Izmir provincial response agencies. The sample consists
of the staff of these institutions and is selected by simple random sampling method. Of the
participants in the study, 63.6% were men, and the mean age of them was 31.77±8.245 years (ranging
18-57 years). 80.3% of the participants were trained in triage and participants had the most ethical
dilemma about scarce resource use and resuscitation restrictions. There is no statistically
significant difference between variables of ethical dilemma and occupational group, duty institution
and professional experience in triage practices. In this study it is concluded that the ethical
dilemmas experienced by the intervention personnel in triage applications were shaped within the
framework of scarce resource utilization and resuscitation restrictions.
Keywords: Disaster triage; ethical dilemma; scarce resource usage; triage protocols

In this study, Turkish ICT student teachers ’ judgments and justifications in four scenarios involving ICT-related ethical problems were investigated. Scenarios were designed based on Mason’s (1986) four ethical issues: privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. The study was carried out in the fall of 2010. We used the critical incidents technique (CIT)- a qualitative research approach- and the data were gathered via a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was conducted face-to-face with an in-person interview. Participants were 35 ICT student teachers from the Faculty of Educational Science at Ankara University. The associations between different categorical variables were analysed with Fisher’s exact test. Open-ended questions were analysed through content analysis. The findings revealed that gender does not affect the ethical judgments and justifications of ICT student teachers. Furthermore the same reasons and justifications were reported by ICT student teachers who h...