Question

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects student test performance. The researcher requires each student enrolled in AP Psychology to participate. Students are divided into 3 groups—positive feedback, negative feedback, and no feedback. After completing the Module 1 FRQ, students in Group 1 are provided with positive feedback about their work and encouraged to keep working hard. Students in Group 2 are given criticisms of their writing and encouraged to rethink taking the course. Students in Group 3 are only given a numeric score, no written feedback. After reading the feedback, participants complete a survey measuring self-esteem and take their Module 1 Exam. Test scores are compared for the three groups. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and the true nature of the research explained. Results of the study indicate that participants who received positive feedback on their FRQs scored on average of 8 points higher than students who received negative feedback or no feedback at all. Which of the following violations to ethical guidelines is committed in the study described?
A) Confidentiality
B) Exposure to harmful procedures
C) Failure to debrief
D) Inappropriate use of deception
E) Voluntary participation

Answer 1

Answer: Option D

Explanation:

The test groups were divided into three groups the positive, negative and no feedback groups. The positive groups got better scores than compared to the negative feedback group and no feedback group.

The ethical guidelines that is violated is the inappropriate use of deception. The group that got negative feedback. Intentionally their morale was downsided.

Deception is not ethical in case of psychological experiments however, in some cases it is allowed to keep the experiment unbiased.