Ethical Decision Making in Speech-Language Pathology: Faculty and Student Perceptions

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of speech-language pathology (SLP) faculty versus SLP graduate students' with regard to ethical behavior. Participants consisted of 34 second-year SLP graduate students and 27 faculty members from Council of Academic Accreditation (CAA) training programs in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana. All participants completed an investigator-designed instrument consisting of ethical scenarios. Results indicated differences between faculty and student perceptions in two of eight scenarios related to supervision and autonomous practice. Differences were attributed to students' limited experience in academic and clinical coursework.

Introduction:

Storch (1988) noted health care managers often make decisions based on the premise "this is how we have always done things" (p. 288). If true, one must question whether or not this attitude is reflected in how speech-language pathology (SLP) graduate students are taught to make ethical decisions.

Academia's primary purpose is to prepare professionals for practice in "real world" settings. As such, there is a need to examine how SLP faculty teaches ethical decision-making. In particular, one might ask -- Is instruction with regard to ethical decision making limited to understanding a set of guidelines, or do faculty teach how to apply ethics to a decision making process?

Young's (1994) dissertation was designed to explore what American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) accredited programs were doing to provide ethics education for students-in-training. Pannbacker, Middleton, and Vekovious (1996) wrote a text devoted exclusively to ethics in SLP and audiology. In fact, an initial premise in the founding of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) were the ethical concerns about the well-being of consumers (Herer, 1989; Pannbacker, Middleton, & Lass, 1994).

Nonetheless, as compared to other allied health disciplines, the profession of speech-language pathology appears to be in its infancy regarding a comprehensive education-based approach to ethics and related decision making protocols. Empirically-based ethics education is apparently lacking, and to strengthen the profession, speech-language pathologists should investigate additional instruction and education relating to ethics and the SLP.

Overview:

Ethics is defined in Webster's New Dictionary of the English Language (2001) as "a discipline dealing with good and evil and with moral duty and moral principles or practice" (p. 178). Herer (1989) defined ethics as "moral principles or values that address whether actions, intentions, and goals are right or wrong" (p. 87). These two definitions suggest that an individual's moral values or principles influence his or her decision-making. Denton, Huffman, and Newman-Ryan (2001) further characterized ethics as the outer demonstration of morals, a collective system of principles, established accepted standards of conduct, and the value of behavioral influence on an individual or group.