Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
Ethical education and training programmes for student psychologists are a requirement of any university programme designed for training student psychologists, to ensure that professional educational psychologists are adequately prepared to deal with the ethical dilemmas they may face. The aim of this research study was to investigate the ethical education and training experiences of practising educational psychologists in the context of South Africa. This was done through semi-structured interviews with six practising educational psychologists in South Africa. The study was qualitative in nature and a generic qualitative approach was adopted. The data collected from the semi-structured interviews was analysed through a template analysis process and themes and codes were identified.
The findings indicated that the participants received a sound theoretical understanding of ethics, however, this understanding could not always be applied consistently to assisting educational psychologists in handling the ethical dilemmas they came across while practising as educational psychologists. There appeared to be a lack of understanding of African Ethics and how this may impact the ethical dilemmas that were described and there was a lack of understanding of the approaches that should possibly be adopted by educational psychologists who are faced with ethical dilemmas in the context of working in a school environment.
The main conclusion from this research investigation is that the participants mostly had a good theoretical understanding of ethics but there was not enough exposure to relevant practical case studies, especially in the context educational psychologists working in schools. A further finding is that there is lack of in-depth understanding of African Ethics and how this applies to professional educational psychologists working in South Africa...