ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS WHEN ESTABLISHING SURVEY STANDARDS

To qualify as a profession, any occupation must meet both ethical and technical criteria. This article focuses on the ethical criteria, with only tangential references to technical skills and performance criter ia. It asserts that: (a) rigid adherence to performance standards does not necessarily protect professional ethics and (b) professional ethi cs pet se do not protect transcendent moral codes. Professional ethics involve obligations to clients, to others (such as respondents) whose assistance is needed to conduct a survey and whose interests may be a ffected by it, to the profession, and to the society at large. While i nterlocking, these obligations are often in potential conflict-so they must be balanced against each other. Fulfilling all these obligations in a way that adequately achieves a balance is essential if survey re search is to be a profession and not just a technically advanced trade . A common theme that permeates the complete set of obligations is tha t to maintain a professional standing, survey researchers must provide as much information as possible about a study-to clients, to others s uch as respondents, to the profession, and to the larger society. Whil e this observation does not specify elements that should be included i n a code of professional ethics, it does define a perspective for deve loping one.