Assessment

Achievement standard: 91848

Standard title: Examine ethical issues in psychological practice

Credits: 3

Introduction

This assessment activity requires you to examine the ethical issues in psychological practice using Peter Neubauer's twin studies as your case study and present your findings.

You will be assessed on how comprehensively you examine ethical issues in psychological practice.

Task

You are a part of an ethical committee that has been set up to investigate experimental psychological research.

You will need to research the controversial 1960s twin study conducted by Peter Neubauer and be familiar with the New Zealand Code of Ethics.

It is up to you to review the ethical guidelines set out in the Code of Ethics for Psychologists Working in Aotearoa/New Zealand to determine the ethical issues and decide which, if any, ethics guidelines have been broken.

You are required to evaluate any issues of compliance in the study and make suggestions as to how to address these issues.

Prepare a report that your committee will deliver about their decision on Neubauer's study. You will need to include the following information:

● examples of key issues of how Neubauer's study complies with and/or breaches the ethical guidelines

● specific details from the study and specific principles from the Code of Ethics for Psychologists Working in Aotearoa

● any defence that Neubauer could make about whether ethical breaches occurred

● suggested improvements to psychological practice that could ensure ethical compliance in Neubauer’s experiment

● the implications of these improvements

● psychological studies or theories to support the judgements.