Ethical Decision Making

Principals’ Moral Agency and Ethical Decision-Making: Toward a Transformational Ethics

This descriptive study of the ethical decision-making among a group of Canadian principals provides a rich portrait of how and why principals engage their moral agency through their decision-making processes. The result indicates that modelling moral agency is important for encouraging others to engage their own moral agency in the best interests of all children; principals tend to engage less often in transformational aspects of leadership as part of the decision-making process.

An expanded ethical decision-making model to resolve ethical dilemmas in assessment

The aim of this study is to expand a newly developed ethical decision-making model for the assessment. The interview data were collected from seven instructors from elementary school to higher education on their experiences of dealing with ethical dilemmas in assessment. This model provides guidelines to resolve ethical dilemmas. Moreover, it also offers the impacts of decision-making on instruction, student learning, and future assessment inform teachers that appropriate assessment decisions should work with other teaching practices.

Validating an ethical decision-making model of assessment using authentic scenarios

The aim of this research is to examine the usability of the ethical decision-making model by applying authentic scenarios involving ethical dilemmas proposed by classroom teachers. Thirty-three educators in a graduate-level online assessment course who participated in the study. The result proves the validation of the newly-developed ethical decision-making model using authentic scenarios and the model can be used for teacher professional development at the district level and in teacher education at the university level.

Leaders on the Front Line—Managing Emotion for Ethical Decision Making: A Teaching Case Study for Supervision of School Personnel

This case study focuses on managing emotion for ethical decision making in supervision of personnel. The case offers troubling encounters between a secondary assistant principal and a novice teacher, a veteran teacher, and a veteran administrator. The result is to engage school leaders and prospective school leaders in hypothetical yet realistic scenarios that could challenge the leader to reflect, consider ways to manage emotion on the front line of education, and use the understanding to grow as an ethical school leader.

Philosophy for Teachers (P4T) - developing new teachers’ applied ethical decision-making

The purpose of the ‘community of practice’ was to enable new teachers to think ethically about dilemmas they had faced, based on their early experience of classroom practice. This community is comprising new teachers, education studies students, teacher educators and philosophers. The author identified an urgent need among new teachers for facilitating space and time for critical reflection addressing not only practical concerns but the existential anxieties which beginning teachers face when dealing with challenging behaviour by their pupils, including sustaining motivation and a sense of ‘moral purpose’.

The effectiveness of oidde learning model in the improvement of bioethics knowledge, ethical decision, and ethical attitude of biology pre-service teachers

The aim of this research includes comparing the effectiveness of OIDDE learning model and conventional learning models in improving ethical decision-making abilities. The research population was 76 pre-service teachers of the University of Malang. The results showed that there were significant differences in the effectiveness of achieving improved ethical decision making, and ethical attitudes between OIDDE and conventional learning models, namely the effectiveness of OIDDE learning models higher than conventional learning models.

Philosophy for teachers (P4T) in South Africa - re-imagining provision to support new teachers’ applied ethical decision-making

The workshop about ‘Philosophy for Teachers' took place in South Africa in 2017, comprising student teachers, teacher educators and philosophers. Significant new insights to emerge included greater clarity on the respective contributions of P4T and other initiatives already applying ‘P4C’ to address professional ethics within teacher education. In particular, P4T re-framed within this new context can be seen to create shared space for reflection on teacher identity and the complexity of difference and ‘otherness’ in classroom practice.

Ethics Awareness

This platform offers plenty of resources for ethics awareness. Importantly, it provides a model for making ethical decisions involving three steps.

1. All decisions must take into account and reflect a concern for the interests and well being of all affected individuals.

2. Ethical values and principles always take precedence over nonethical ones.

3. It is ethically proper to violate an ethical principle only when it is clearly necessary to advance another true ethical principle.

Ethical Decision Making Models

This website provides three models of making ethical decisions.

1. Bowen's Model for Strategic Decision Making

2. TARES Ethical Persuasion

3. Potter’s Box for Decision Making

1. Faddis, T. (2020). The ethical line : 10 leadership strategies for effective decision making. Corwin.

2. Gao, R., Liu, J., & Yin, B. (2021). An expanded ethical decision-making model to resolve ethical dilemmas in assessment. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 68, 100978.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2021.100978

3. Gao, R., Liu, J., Johnson, R., Wang, J., & Hu, L. (2019). Validating an ethical decision-making model of assessment using authentic scenarios. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 62, 187–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.05.003

4. Hudha, A. M., Amin, M., Sumitro, S. B., & Akbar, S. (2018). The effectiveness of oidde learning model in the improvement of bioethics knowledge, ethical decision, and ethical attitude of biology pre-service teachers. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 17(6), 960–971. https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/18.17.960

5. Keough, P. D. (2019). Ethical problem-solving and decision-making for positive and conclusive outcomes. IGI Global. 

6. Knapp, S. J., Gottlieb, M. C., & Handelsman, M. M. (2015). Ethical Dilemmas in Psychotherapy: Positive Approaches to Decision Making. American Psychological Association. 

7. Orchard, J. L., & Davids, N. (2019). Philosophy for teachers (P4T) in South Africa - re-imagining provision to support new teachers’ applied ethical decision-making. Ethics and Education, 14(3), 333–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2019.1617392

8. Orchard, J., Heilbronn, R., & Winstanley, C. (2016). Philosophy for Teachers (P4T) - developing new teachers’ applied ethical decision-making. Ethics and Education, 11(1), 42–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2016.1145495

9. Pennsylvania State University. (n.d.). Ethical Decision Making Models. https://pagecentertraining.psu.edu/public-relations-ethics/introduction-to-public-relations-ethics/lesson-2/ethical-decision-making-models/

10. Sabre Lynn Cherkowski, Keith D Walker, & Benjamin Kutsyuruba. (2015). Principals’ Moral Agency and Ethical Decision-Making: Toward a Transformational Ethics. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 10(5).http://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2015v10n5a572

11. Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education : applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.

12. Simpson, D. J., & Sacken, D. M. (2021). Ethical dilemmas in schools : collaborative inquiry, decision-making, and action. Cambridge University Press.

13. TED. (2022, July 7). How Ethics Can Help You Make Better Decisions | Michael Schur | TED [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAswj8evFZk

14. Tenuto, P. L., Gardiner, M. E., & Yamamoto, J. K. (2016). Leaders on the Front Line—Managing Emotion for Ethical Decision Making: A Teaching Case Study for Supervision of School Personnel. The Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 19(3), 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555458916657123

15. University of California San Diego. (n.d.). Ethics Awareness. https://blink.ucsd.edu/finance/accountability/ethics-awareness.html#The-Decision-Making-Model