Unit Outline

This unit aims to provide students with a critical overview of ethical and professional issues relevant to clinical psychology practice. Ethical decision-making models will be applied to real-world case examples to assist students in identifying issues pertaining to complex and nuanced ethical and professional dilemmas. Students will be required to consider dilemmas involving competing ethical and professional duties and responsibilities. Students will also consider the interplay between ethics, morals, values and legal codes, as they relate to clinical practice.

Intended Learning Outcomes

As per the Assessment and Results Policy 1.3, your results will reflect your achievement against specified learning outcomes.

On completion of this unit, you will be able to:


1.	Formulate and communicate written and oral responses to complex ethical and professional dilemmas as informed by ethical codes, guidelines, standards, legislation, theory and research in clinical practice.
2.	Evaluate the intersection between ethics, morals, values and legal codes, as they relate to clinical psychology practice.

Requisites


REQUISITE TYPE	REQUISITES
Pre-requisite	Ethics and Professional Psychology Practice 1
Concurrent Pre-requisite	Clinical Psychology Placement 2
Anti-requisite (mutual excl)	KHA740

Alterations as a result of student feedback

The following changes have been made to this unit since 2023 based on student feedback:

More opportunities to receive feedback from workshop facilitators

More guided discussion of professional and ethical issues in workshops

How will I be Assessed?

For more detailed assessment information please see MyLO.

Assessment schedule


ASSESSMENT TASK #	ASSESSMENT TASK NAME	DATE DUE	WEIGHT	LINKS TO INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Assessment Task 1:	Ethical and professional decision making OSCE	See the MyLO site for the due date	50 %	LO1, LO2
Assessment Task 2:	Interdisciplinary ethical and professional decision-making task	Week 9	50 %	LO1, LO2

Assessment details

Assessment Task 1: Ethical and professional decision making OSCE

Task Description:

Students will be required to demonstrate competency in responding to a client in the face of an ethical and professional dilemma.
Students must successfully pass the OSCE for PSY710 to achieve an overall passing grade on this examination and this unit. If students do not demonstrate competency on this OSCE station, they will be provided remedial feedback and will be required to repeat this OSCE at a date determined by the School of Psychological Sciences. If after a second attempt, this student is unable to demonstrate competency, they will be
required to repeat this unit.
All students will be required to sign a statutory declaration stating they will not disclose the contents of the OSCE to anyone.

Task Length:

15 minutes

Due Date:

See the MyLO site for the due date

Weight:

50 %

CRITERION #

CRITERION

MEASURES INTENDED

LEARNING OUTCOME(S)


1	Identification and analysis of the complexities in ethical and professional issues in each scenario provided.	LO1
2	Analysis and synthesis of the issues in relation to the Code of Ethics, ethical guidelines, legislation, and literature relevant to the scenarios.	LO2
3	Application of an ethical decision-making model to synthesise the information and provide a feasible response to the ethical and professional dilemmas in each scenario.	LO1

Assessment Task 2: Interdisciplinary ethical and professional decision-making task

Task Description:

Use an ethical decision-making model to determine a course of action in response to complex ethical and professional dilemmas (including multidisciplinary contexts) in clinical practice.

Task Length:

2000 words

Due Date:

Week 9

Weight:

50 %

CRITERION #

CRITERION

MEASURES INTENDED

LEARNING OUTCOME(S)

How your final result is determined

To pass this unit, you need to demonstrate your attainment of each of the Intended Learning Outcomes and pass any hurdle tasks.

All assessments within the Postgraduate Professional Training Programs at the University of Tasmania adhere to an ungraded pass profile. Similarly, your academic transcript will use this same grading system.

This means all assessable work will be graded as either UP (ungraded pass), or NN (fail grade), which indicates you need to continue towards developing that competency. You are required to achieve a UP on all assessment pieces in order to successfully pass a unit of study – be that coursework, placement, or thesis.

A UP grade equates to achievement of 70% or higher on a given task, and this benchmark must be achieved to be awarded a UP. These criteria are consistent with both the required performance on the National Psychology Exam, as well as within the School of Psychological Sciences, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania.

Marks are reviewed by the Unit Coordinator and Psychology’s Assessment Committee and may be adjusted to ensure fairness, consistency and appropriateness before the final marks and grades are assigned in accordance with University policy and the specified unit assessment. Grades and marks are also reviewed by the College of Health and Medicine Assessors’ Committee.

Note: In order to obtain a full passing grade in this unit, students are expected to submit and achieve a UP grade on all assessable work.

Submission of assignments

Where practicable, assignments should be submitted to an assignment submission folder in MYLO. You must submit assignments by the due date or receive a penalty (unless an extension of time has been approved by the Unit Coordinator). Students submitting any assignment in hard copy, or because of a practicum finalisation, must attach a student cover sheet and signed declaration for the submission to be accepted for marking.

Requests for extensions

If you are unable to submit an assessment task by the due date, you should apply for an extension.

A request for an extension should first be discussed with your Unit Coordinator or teaching support team where possible. A request for an extension must be submitted by the assessment due date, except where you can provide evidence it was not possible to do so. Typically, an application for an extension will be supported by documentary evidence: however, where it is not possible for you to provide evidence please contact your Unit Coordinator.

The Unit Coordinator must notify you of the outcome of an extension request within 3 working days of receiving the request.

Late penalties

Assignments submitted after the deadline will receive a late penalty of 5% of the original available mark for each calendar day (or part day) that the assignment is late. Late submissions will not be accepted more than 10 calendar days after the due date, or after assignments have been returned to other students on a scheduled date, whichever occurs first. Further information on Late Penalties can be found on the Assessments and Results Procedure.

Review of results and appeals

You are entitled to ask for a review of the marking and grading of your assessment task if there is an irregularity in the marking standards or an error in the process for determining the outcome of an assessment. Details on how to request a review of a mark for an assignment are outlined in the Review and Appeal of Academic Decisions Procedure.