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The ethics of instructional technology: issues and coping strategies experienced by professional technologists in design and training situations in higher education

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Abstract

To correspond to the Association for Educational Communication Technology (AECT) Code of Professional Ethics and the professional journal TechTrends’ ethics columns, this paper provides empirical data regarding ethical issues associated with the use of instructional technology in design and training situations. In-depth interviews of 20 professional technologists were conducted. The three most prominent ethical concerns reported were copyright, learner privacy, and accessibility. The results of this study also identified three ethical issues that have not been discussed extensively in the literature: diversity, conflicts of interest, and professionalism/confidence. In addition to identifying ethical issues, the findings of the study also contribute to the current literature through identifying coping strategies of ethical issues adopted by professional technologists. Finally, implications to researchers, managers, and practitioners were discussed.

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Acknowledgements

Author would like to thank Dr. Steven Ross and the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Teaching and Learning Excellence, Oklahoma State University, 308 S. Keats Drive, Stillwater, OK, 74074, USA

    Hong Lin

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  1. Hong Lin
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Correspondence to Hong Lin.

Appendix

Appendix

Appendix A: Interview guide

  1. 1.

    Please tell me something about your work activities in learning technologies. For example (the following questions are for probing purposes):

    1. (a)

      What are your current major responsibilities associated with learning technologies? Who are your clients?

    2. (b)

      Do you or have you had any additional responsibilities in working in learning technologies?

  2. 2.

    Do you usually work in a team environment? Do you usually work independently? Or in both situations?

  3. 3.

    Without naming names, could you give me a specific example of an ethical issue or an ethical dilemma that is the most salient to you or one that you encounter the most in your job?

    1. (a)

      What was the situation?

    2. (b)

      What did you do to handle the issue or dilemma? Why?

    3. (c)

      What was the result of your action (or lack of action)? Do you believe the result is positive? Negative? Why? Were there any policy changes or job redesigns that resulted from this ethical issue or dilemma? Why or why not?

    4. (d)

      How did you feel about the incident? Why did you feel that way?

  4. 4.

    Are there other ethical issues that you have encountered in your work activity of implementing learning technologies?

  5. 5.

    Without naming names, can you think of any situation involving your work in learning technologies in which you and a colleague disagreed on how to handle the situation ethically?

    1. (a)

      What was the situation?

    2. (b)

      How did he/she handle the issue or the dilemma? Do you think he/she handled it properly? Why or why not?

    3. (c)

      How did you arrive at the problem, and how did you resolve it?

  6. 6.

    In the context of learning technology, how do you decide whether an issue has ethical implications? Why?

  7. 7.

    How do you decide what to do when faced with an issue that has ethical implications? What do you rely on to try to solve ethical issues?

    1. (Questions

      serve as probes or clarification)

    2. (a)

      Do you mostly rely on personal values? Law and regulations? Policies set by the university? Professional ethical standards? Or anything else? Why?

    3. (b)

      Are there any policies regarding ethical issues that you know of for practitioners working in learning technology to rely on? Could you explain?

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Lin, H. The ethics of instructional technology: issues and coping strategies experienced by professional technologists in design and training situations in higher education . Education Tech Research Dev 55, 411–437 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-006-9029-y

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