Empirical studies of adult educators' attitudes towards a code of ethics
Seeing a void in empirical data examining adult educators' attitudes in North America towards a code of ethics for their profession, in 1993 MacDonald and Wood set out to sample a cross section of practitioners throughout Indiana to gauge where the body professional stood on this issue. Eight years later Gordon and Sork (2001) repeated the study for educators in British Columbia. Below is a comparison of their results.
In the 1993 MacDonald and Wood study 249 professional adult educators across a spectrum of sectors were polled. The sectors included: adult basic education/literacy, continuing education administration and training and development. The findings revealed that a majority of respondents were interest in adopting a code of ethics into their profession. As the breakdown indicates, they are by far the largest block at over 50 percent, while undecided respondents make up just over a quarter of the sample. Those distinctly against such a code only registered 15 percent of the sample.
Clearly this 20 year old study shows some pent up desire in the industry for regulation and legitimacy. |
The later 2001 Gordon & Sork survey questioned 261 professional adult educators across the same spectrum of educational sectors in British Columbia. While the results point in the same direction, the graph clearly shows the degree of certainty is much greater in favour of a code of ethics wit almost 50 percent more in favour of a code than in Indiana while only 7 percent are against such a code.
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