Ethics in Science Education Research: Analysis of the Brazilian Journals’ Editorial Policy

Abstract

We present the analysis results of the editorial policy of 32 Brazilian journals indexed in the area of Science Education regarding the ethical principles followed by authors. The policies were analyzed according to the ethical precepts in the guidelines for authors; the ways ethical aspects of articles should be communicated to editors; the procedures for cases of scientific misconduct and retractions to authors, editors and reviewers. The obtained data indicated that (a) 40.6% of the journals do not mention any ethical precept in their editorial policy; (b) 31.2% of journals report that ethical aspects must be included in the text submitted to editors, 3.1% by sending a signed document, 25% by presenting a copy of the institution’s Research Ethics Committee approval and/or the Free and Informed Consent Form, 12.5% imply that the study was carried out within the norms, standards or ethical principles without requiring any type of information and 43.8% did not present any reference to the authors; (c) 34.4% do not include considerations about scientific misconduct and (d) only 15% of the journals have a topic that explains the retractions for cases of misconduct. The importance of including in their editorial policies the aspects related to good scientific practices is discussed in this work. Such aspects include investigations carried out with the collaboration of human beings, as well as the expansion of the debate on ethical issues in teaching and research institutions, aiming the ethical training of future professionals and researchers.

Keywords

• ethics
• science education research
• brazilian journals