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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Feb 2.
Published in final edited form as: Account Res. 2015;22(3):123–138. doi: 10.1080/08989621.2014.955607

Table 1.

Example Ethical Decision-Making Measure Scenario and Questions

Livingston works in the College of Engineering of a big research university which develops modest power navigational radars that are commonly used by small marine vessels. The EPA’s Radiation Protection Program has funded three of the College of Engineering research projects that examine ways to decrease exposure to microwave radiation by varying the rotation speed, wavelength, and other factors. These three projects were developed jointly with two other universities which work closely together to produce the final product. Livingston is the principal investigator for one of these projects

  1. Livingston disagreed with the research protocol submitted with the initial proposal to the EPA’s Radiation Protection Program, but went along with the other principle investigator’s (PI) suggestions so they could meet the submission deadline. He believes that substantial revisions are needed to obtain more accurate data. The new protocol he suggests will address half of the originally proposed research questions and will enable a number of new questions to be examined. What action should Livingston take? Choose two from the following:

    1. Inform the contract monitor that changes are needed and submit a request (M)

    2. Implement the changes he believes are necessary for his project (L)

    3. Meet with the PIs and the contract monitor to discuss changes that are needed (H)

    4. Inform the other PIs that he is making changes to the protocol (L)

    5. Inform the other PIs that changes are needed and meet with them to obtain consensus (M)

    6. Develop a proposal with the PIs outlining needed changes and submit to the contract monitor (H)

    7. Inform the contract monitor that he has implemented the changes (L)

    8. Develop a proposal without input from the other PIs and submit to the contract monitor (M)

Note. Item responses are labeled to indicate whether they represent low-quality (L), medium-quality (M), or high-quality (H) responses to the ethical decision-making scenario. The quality designations are only presented on the measure key; they are not visible to participants.