The Use of Informational Formats to Implement APA Ethical Principles in Collecting Classroom Data

Summary

The study examined the effects of providing six levels of research information to 270 men and women graduate students on the data from three different cognitive tasks. The effects of the three tasks on the Ss' academic self-concepts were also investigated. No significant differences were found among the six levels of information for each of the three tasks. On the logical task a significant linear relationship was found supporting previous research that indicates that the more information given to research Ss, the lower the dependent variable scores. There were no significant differences on self-concept scores across the three tasks used. Overall, the implementation of ethical principles had little effect on data collected in classroom settings, indicating support for implementation. However, these data did indicate that providing more information than required under the ethical principles can result in data bias on a specific task.