Code of Ethics for the Research Centre in Basic Education
The research in the area of basic education aims to extend knowledge and comprehension in all comprising areas, and it also considers every perspectives and voice, including learners, teaching, non-teaching staff, policymakers and the community. The Research Centre in Basic Education (CIEB) recognizes that the research related to basic education must be carried out within a set of ethical principles based upon the respect for people, for knowledge, for democratic values, for the quality of research and for academic freedom. CIEB bases its code of ethics on the following documents: American Educational Research Association (2011); The British Educational Research Association Ethical Guidelines (2011); Ethics letter from the Portuguese Society for Educational Sciences (2014); Ethical Research Involving Children (http://childethics.com/ethical-guidance/); Regulations of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (2015). As such, CIEB’s researchers actions must follow the ethical principles underpinned in the aforementioned documents, assuming responsibilities, namely with participants, research sponsors, the community of educational research, education professionals, political actors and the public in general. Hence, these responsibilities are set out in the following guidelines:1. Responsibilities towards the participants in the research. Bearing in mind the objectives of educational.
research, CIEB’s ethical guidelines are based on shared responsibilities and commitment, which also implies building a parallel path grounded on trust and mutual respect, that meets a horizontal view rather than a vertical one (or hierarchical) in leadership, thus respecting people as participants involved in data collection processes. People can be collaborators or active participants in the process, or they can be inserted in the context where the data is collected. In this way, researchers should take the following procedures into account:
- To inform the participants and collaborators about the objectives of the research to be carried out and the contribution to the educational research;;
- To explain the procedures, techniques and instruments to be used and the role of the participants within this framework;
- To establish relationships of trust, honesty, consistency and commitment towards the participants by preventing some behaviours such as discrimination, exploitation or intimidation;
- To ensure that all participants understand the processes in which they will be involved, including the importance of their participation in the success of research;
- To establish the legal authorization procedures, ensuring the informed consent of the participants, written or oral, about the research objectives, the data to be collected and disseminated, as well as the use of technologies to record data, the type of involvement of participants, time and possible interlocutors;
- To guarantee the voluntary participation of the participants, allowing the right to renounce the research;
- To guarantee anonymity and confidentiality of participants' data;
- Researchers must recognize the rights of the participants;
- If the participants are children, the researchers should follow the conduct referred to in the previous points, recognizing the expressed in articles 12 and 13 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child;
- To ensure that the research with children and with people in situations of vulnerability are indeed necessary.
- To create conditions so that informed consent is guaranteed by those responsible for these people.
2. Responsibilities towards the sponsors and collaborators in research.
The research promotors are individual or collective entities which sponsor the research or provide access to the data and to the participants. In this sense, it is deemed a requirement to the execution of the research as well as to conclude any agreements (protocols) in writing.
The CIEB members have the ethic responsibility to continuously improve their skills as researchers, thus including, in this process, every formal mechanism that makes the accomplished research reliable.
3. Responsibilities and respect towards the integrity and reputation of educational research.
Considering its ethical dimension, the work developed by the members of CIEB reveals itself as a professional act that requires reflected actions (more than intentions), sustained in processes of interaction and (trans) formation, with implications in the different contexts of training, disseminating ways of teaching and learning, aiming at the improvement of everyone’s professional quality.
Unanimously approved by the attending members of the scientific committee, on 4th May 2018.