Standardization of the Social Work Professional Ethics Questionnaire

Abstract In recent years, the necessity of professional ethics has attracted the attention of the authorities of organizations and institutions while aiming at improving the quality of services. Professional ethics is a fundamental part of social work practice in providing social services. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to develop a social work professional ethics questionnaire and standardize it. This study is of exploratory nature and its population is composed of all social workers employed in social service organizations of the Iranian capital of Tehran, meaning that the study pool is composed of about 868 people. A sample of 325 people was examined. The tool employed for collecting data for this study was a researcher-made professional ethics questionnaire whose factual validity was analyzed by university professors, content validity by the use of Cronbach's alpha, which was calculated 0.81, and its construct validity was investigated using exploratory factor analysis under the KMO test. The reliability of the information gathering tool was, also, examined through a re-examination method with a correlation coefficient of 0.85. According to the factor analysis performed, except for a few items that were eliminated, the validity of all items according to the KMO test were higher than 0/60. The eight dimensions considered for professional ethics according to the theoretical literature in this area were confirmed by the deletion of certain terms. These results indicate the validity and reliability of this questionnaire as a normative tool. Keywords: Standardization, Social Work, Professional Ethics, Questionnair