Ethical Oversight Policy

Al-Adzka: Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Guru Madrasah Ibtidaiyah is committed to ensuring that published research respects the dignity, rights, safety, privacy, and well-being of research participants. This policy applies particularly to educational research involving children, students, teachers, parents, school communities, vulnerable groups, identifiable personal information, classroom observations, interviews, surveys, experiments, digital platforms, photographs, audio-visual recordings, and institutional records.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research complies with applicable ethical principles, institutional requirements, national regulations, and accepted disciplinary standards.

Ethical Approval

Research involving human participants must receive approval from an appropriately constituted research ethics committee, institutional review board, or other authorised body when such approval is required by the authors’ institution, funding body, research setting, or applicable regulations.

The manuscript should identify the approving institution, approval or reference number, and approval date where available. Authors may be asked to provide documentary evidence of ethical approval during editorial assessment or peer review.

When formal ethical approval was not required or was not institutionally available, authors must explain this clearly in the manuscript and describe the procedures used to protect participants. An exemption from formal approval does not remove the authors’ responsibility to conduct the research ethically. The editor may request an institutional statement or additional clarification before proceeding with the manuscript.

Ethical approval obtained after data collection will not normally be accepted as a substitute for prior ethical review.

Informed Consent and Voluntary Participation

Participation in research must be voluntary and based on sufficient, understandable information about the purpose of the study, procedures, expected involvement, potential risks and benefits, confidentiality arrangements, data use, publication plans, and the right to decline or withdraw without disadvantage.

Authors must obtain informed consent from adult participants. For research involving children or participants who cannot provide legally valid consent, permission must be obtained from a parent, legal guardian, or other authorised representative, as applicable. Children should also provide age-appropriate assent when they are capable of understanding the research.

Consent must not be obtained through coercion, undue influence, academic pressure, employment authority, or unequal power relationships. Particular care is required when researchers are also participants’ teachers, lecturers, supervisors, school leaders, employers, or service providers.

The manuscript should state how consent and, where applicable, assent were obtained.

Children and Vulnerable Participants

Research involving children, students with disabilities, marginalised communities, economically disadvantaged groups, displaced populations, or other participants in potentially vulnerable circumstances must include safeguards proportionate to the risks involved.

Researchers must minimise physical, psychological, social, educational, cultural, reputational, and digital harm. Participation or non-participation must not affect a participant’s grades, access to learning, institutional treatment, employment, or entitlement to services.

The inclusion of vulnerable participants must be scientifically and educationally justified and must not be based merely on convenience or ease of access.

Privacy, Confidentiality, and Anonymity

Authors must protect participants’ privacy and handle personal or sensitive data securely. Data collection should be limited to information necessary for the stated research objectives.

Names, school identities, locations, photographs, voices, quotations, and other potentially identifying information should be anonymised or pseudonymised unless identification is essential, ethically justified, and explicitly authorised by the participant or an appropriate representative.

Authors should avoid providing combinations of contextual details that could indirectly reveal the identity of individuals, schools, classrooms, families, or communities.

Confidential information obtained through research must not be disclosed except when required by law or when necessary to prevent a serious and immediate risk of harm. Any limits to confidentiality should be communicated to participants during the consent process.

Consent for Publication

Consent to participate in research does not automatically constitute consent to publish identifiable information. Separate and explicit consent for publication must be obtained when a manuscript includes identifiable photographs, videos, audio recordings, personal narratives, detailed case descriptions, or other information through which participants may reasonably be recognised.

Removing a participant’s name may not be sufficient when contextual details still make the person, school, or community identifiable.

Educational Settings and Institutional Permission

Research conducted in schools, madrasahs, universities, community learning centres, or other educational institutions must obtain appropriate institutional permission in addition to individual participant consent when required.

Permission from a principal, teacher, institution, or government authority does not replace the voluntary consent of individual participants. Similarly, parental permission does not remove the need to respect a child’s objection, discomfort, or decision not to participate.

Researchers conducting classroom observations or practitioner research must clearly distinguish routine educational activity from research data collection and must address any conflicts arising from their dual roles.

Deception, Covert Research, and Observation

Research involving deception, incomplete disclosure, covert observation, or the absence of prior consent must have strong methodological justification, present no more than minimal risk, and receive appropriate ethical approval.

Where deception is used, participants should normally be informed and debriefed as soon as reasonably possible. Authors must explain why the research could not have been conducted using a less intrusive approach.

The public accessibility of an online post, discussion, image, or profile does not automatically eliminate ethical responsibilities concerning consent, privacy, contextual integrity, and potential harm.

Digital Data and Artificial Intelligence

Research using learning-management systems, social media, online classrooms, educational applications, artificial intelligence systems, facial or voice recognition, learning analytics, or other digital technologies must address data privacy, informed consent, algorithmic bias, security, transparency, and potential effects on children and other participants.

Authors must explain how digital data were obtained, stored, anonymised, analysed, and protected. Data should not be transferred to public generative artificial intelligence platforms when doing so could expose confidential, personal, copyrighted, or institutionally restricted information.

Research using artificial intelligence must remain subject to meaningful human oversight and must not expose participants to unjustified surveillance, discriminatory profiling, automated educational decisions, or avoidable risk.

Cultural Respect and Community Research

Researchers must respect the cultural, religious, linguistic, and social contexts of participants and communities. Community customs or institutional practices should be considered without overriding the fundamental rights, dignity, safety, or voluntary participation of individuals.

Research involving Indigenous, traditional, religious, or local communities should avoid exploitation, misrepresentation, cultural appropriation, and the disclosure of restricted community knowledge. Where appropriate, researchers should engage relevant community representatives while preserving the autonomy of individual participants.

Ethical Reporting

Authors must report research methods honestly and transparently. The manuscript should describe ethical approval, consent procedures, participant protection, privacy safeguards, and any relevant ethical limitations.

Data must not be fabricated, falsified, selectively manipulated, or presented in a manner that misrepresents participants or communities. Authors should avoid stigmatising, discriminatory, demeaning, or deficit-based descriptions.

The editorial team may request ethics approval letters, consent forms, institutional permissions, research instruments, data-management explanations, or other supporting documents. Such documents will be handled confidentially.

Editorial Action

A manuscript may be returned for clarification, suspended, rejected, corrected, or retracted when ethical requirements are absent, unclear, misleading, obtained retrospectively without justification, or found to have been violated.

When serious concerns arise, the journal may contact the authors’ institution, research ethics committee, funding organisation, or other appropriate authority after giving the authors a reasonable opportunity to respond, except when immediate action is required to protect participants or the integrity of the scholarly record.

Ethical concerns identified after publication will be addressed under the journal’s Publication Ethics, Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy, and Appeals and Complaints Policy.

Guiding Principles

This policy is informed by the COPE guidance on ethical oversight and the BERA Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, Fifth Edition.

By submitting a manuscript to Al-Adzka, authors affirm that their research has been conducted and reported in accordance with this Ethical Oversight Policy.