APA Code of Ethics case study outline milestone guide
A milestone outline that applies the APA Code of Ethics to your chosen case study vignette: all five principles and all ten standards defined, the applicable ones flagged and justified, plus a statement of culture and social orientations.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 12, 2026
Why define all five principles and all ten standards?
This milestone is an outline expansion, not an essay, and the instructions encode exactly how the grader will read it: three moves repeated twice. For the principles section you define all five APA general principles — beneficence and nonmaleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for people's rights and dignity — then visibly mark the ones that apply to your vignette's ethical conflict, then justify each marked choice. The standards section repeats the pattern across the ten enforceable standards, from resolving ethical issues and competence through human relations, privacy, and the domain-specific standards on education, research, assessment, and therapy. The define-all-then-select structure is doing real work: it proves you surveyed the whole code before choosing, so a submission that only writes up the two obviously relevant entries has skipped the demonstration the rubric is built around.
The justification lines are where the marks concentrate, and the difference between a definition and a justification is specificity to your vignette. A harassment-flavored conflict, for instance, typically implicates the human relations standard through its unfair discrimination and harassment clauses, and the dignity principle through self-determination and freedom from prejudice — but your outline earns credit only when each highlighted entry is tied to a named behavior in your chosen case, in one or two sentences of argument rather than assertion. Expect the principles to overlap: several will partially apply, and saying why one is central while another is peripheral reads as stronger analysis than highlighting everything defensively. Keep the code's own vocabulary in the outline, because the grader is checking your mapping against the same published document.
The closing item — the statement of culture and social orientations — asks what cultural forces, role differences, and social positions shape the conflict and its resolution, which for most vignettes means power asymmetry between the parties, gender or cultural dynamics the code explicitly tells psychologists to respect, and the institutional context that let the conflict occur. Because this milestone expands the outline you began earlier, carry your existing structure forward and slot these sections in rather than restarting; an outline whose numbering and vignette references match the previous milestone signals the continuity the assignment is explicitly testing. Note that the record this brief was scraped from circulated with one student's begun analysis of their own vignette ahead of the instructions; that material is excluded here, and your outline must be built on your own chosen case.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Define all five APA general principles and all ten enforceable standards in outline form.
- 02Select the principles and standards that apply to the chosen vignette's ethical conflict, and justify each selection against named behaviors in the case.
- 03Distinguish central from peripheral applicability instead of highlighting defensively.
- 04Write the statement of culture and social orientations: power asymmetry, cultural and role differences, institutional context.
- 05Expand the Milestone Two outline in place so the numbering and vignette references carry forward.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation Hi Class, Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts. Contact me if you have any questions. Important information on Writing a Discussion Question Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references) There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article. Include in-text citations in your response Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information Follow APA-7th edition Points will be deducted if the above is not followed Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week. Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references) Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count. Follow APA 7th edition Points will be deducted if the above is not followed Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points. Here are some helpful links Student paper example Citing Sources The Writing Center is a great resource Welcome to class Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to. I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you. Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted. If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations. Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements. Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week. I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01An expanded outline of the final case study analysis paper.
- 02The APA principles section: all five defined, applicable ones highlighted and justified.
- 03The APA standards section: all ten listed and defined, applicable ones highlighted and justified.
- 04A statement of culture and social orientations in the case study.
How should the milestone outline be structured?
The five general principles
Define beneficence and nonmaleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for rights and dignity; mark and justify the ones the vignette's conflict engages.
The ten ethical standards
List and define the enforceable standards; mark the applicable ones — for most conflict vignettes the human relations cluster — and justify each against named case behaviors.
Culture and social orientations
State the cultural forces, role differences, and power asymmetries shaping the conflict and its resolution in the chosen case.
Continuity with Milestone Two
Slot the new sections into the outline begun earlier so structure, numbering, and vignette references carry forward into the final paper's skeleton.
Where is the APA Code of Ethics itself?
Recommended databases
- APA
- Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
- USC Libraries research guides
Search sequence
- 1.Read the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct for the authoritative principle and standard definitions.
- 2.Use the ethical decision-making framework to structure the justification lines for each highlighted entry.
- 3.Check the outline guide for expanding a working outline without breaking its structure.
- 4.Draft the milestone as an outline: definitions, marks, and one-to-two-sentence justifications.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct
American Psychological Association · 2017
The document the whole milestone maps against — the five general principles and ten enforceable standards, in the exact vocabulary the grader will check.
- 02
A Framework for Ethical Decision Making
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University · 2021
A working method for arguing which ethical considerations are central versus peripheral — the structure behind strong justification lines.
- 03
Making an Outline
USC Libraries, Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper · 2024
The mechanics of expanding a working outline — hierarchy, numbering, and parallel structure — so the milestone reads as one continuous plan.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Writing up only the obviously relevant principles — the define-all-then-select structure is the demonstration being graded.
- Justifying with restated definitions instead of tying each highlighted entry to a named behavior in the vignette.
- Highlighting everything defensively rather than arguing which entries are central and which peripheral.
- Restarting the outline instead of expanding the Milestone Two structure the instructions reference.
- Drafting prose paragraphs when the deliverable is an outline with definitions and justification lines.
- Leaving the culture and social orientations item as an afterthought when it is a numbered requirement.
Submission checklist
- All five principles defined; applicable ones highlighted with a justification each.
- All ten standards listed and defined; applicable ones highlighted with a justification each.
- Every justification names a behavior from your chosen vignette.
- Statement of culture and social orientations included.
- Outline continues the Milestone Two structure and numbering.
- The code's own terminology used throughout.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.