Contribuição para uma ética de investigação educacional: Alguns exemplos e sugestões

Abstract

Given the recent growth and development of educational research in Portugal there is a growing need for the scientific community to ponder matters of ethics in research. In this paper, an effort has been made in order to present a few ideas and clues which may spring board to launch a discussion on research ethics and deontology. A cursive analysis of some situations and problems (namely, manipulation of variables in experimental design studies, results publishing repercussions, subjects rights to confidentiality and anonymity as well as right to public recognition of their participation in studies) clearly shows that there is a wide spectrum of ethical issues regarding research that needs to be addressed. Among other things, it is up yo the investigator to decide what to do with regards to ethical issues and problems that might occur within a given research process, preventing as much as possible any wrongdoing. For instance, voluntary cooperation on the part of the research subjects is a must. The safeguard of ethical principles must be one of the most constant preoccupations on the part of the reseachers and should be clearly stated in any research report, particularly in Master thesis and PhD dissertations.