Introduction
What does it mean „Responsible Educational Research (RER)” ?
The main objective of this volume of our Journal is to build a strong background
of partnership and community of various European institutions in the area of
Responsible Educational Research (RER) in order to share knowledge, best practices,
experience and foster the dissemination and promotion of philosophy of RER.
Specific goals of this volume are as follows:
–– to enable European researchers to undertake the educational issues connected
with the health, gender, sustainable development, ICT in education and
inclusive education in responsible way,
–– to exchange knowledge between universities and enable them to transfer
experience from their projects and research,
–– to ensure the possibility for the researchers and other stakeholders to represent
their work to the community and other scientists in Europe and beyond,
–– to develop the governance for the advancement of responsible research
by all stakeholders (researchers, policy makers, business and civil society
organisations), which is sensitive to society needs and demands and promotes
responsible educational research,
–– to foster sustainable interaction between research institutions, business and
policy makers,
–– to ensure the dissemination of information about scientific achievements in the
area of educational research at the international level.
The following factors are crucial for the development of educational research:
open access, ethics and transparency. So far, none comprehensive activities have
been taken that would clearly define the issues of transparency and responsibility
of educational research.
The first important factor is an open access to scientific publications and
articles. Currently, it is believed that access to research results contributes to the
overall improvement of the quality of research and innovation in both public and
private sectors. In principle, such activities are to support creation of the European
Research Area and the Innovation Union – the two flagship initiatives of the
European Commission in the field of research and development.
Open access is defined as the practice of providing on-line access to scientific
information that is free of charge to the end-user and that is re-usable. In the context
of research and innovation, scientific information can refer to peer-reviewed
scientific research articles or research data. Wider access to scientific publications
and data therefore helps to build on previous research results (improved quality
of results), foster collaboration and avoid duplication of effort (greater efficiency),
[4]
accelerate innovation and involve citizens and society (improved transparency of
the scientific process).
The next important factors are transparency and ethics. Researchers have
an ethical obligation to facilitate the evaluation of their evidence-based knowledge
claims through data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency
so that their work can be tested or replicated. For example, researchers making
evidence-based knowledge claims should provide a full account of how they draw
their analytic conclusions from the data, i.e. clearly explicate the connecting data
to conclusions. In case of educational research this issue is particularly important.
Transparency is one of the crucial criteria in educational research. Researchers
are sensitized by transparency in the scope of advantage and disadvantage aspects
of research project. It protects readers, as well as authors, from illegal inferences and
distant associations which are beyond the reach of research project. Transparency
provides conditions for verification of presented research results. Science education,
focusing on human and social processes associated with its development and
functioning, enters an area empiricism so many times, each time trying to determine
the condition of the part of individuals and the conditions in which they have
to operate. From the point of view of a certain scientific community, credibility of
observations made and statements formulated based on them depend on the accuracy
of methodological solutions adopted in this community. So it is particularly
important in the process of publishing research results to gain transparency of
their course, giving recipients the opportunity to review conclusions, without which
they are exposed to the dangers of subjectivism, unauthorized generalization and
interpretation of data collected during the research process. Transparency in presenting
the results of the observations is particularly important for young scientists
[Sławomir Pasikowski, Transparentność w publikowaniu wyników badań empirycznych
poświęconych edukacji (Transparency in publishing results of empirical
research on education), Educational Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 16 (2013)].
In a European context the following points of reference should be reflected in
the design of research processes:
–– ethical acceptability, which includes compliance with both the EU charter on
fundamental rights, as well as the safety of research,
–– orientation towards societal needs, which includes an orientation towards
contributing to achieving objectives of sustainable development (consisting of
economic, social, as well as environmental aspects).
Due to the fact that the volume is focused on responsible educational research,
it is necessary to analyse the definition and main aspects of responsible research.
Firstly, responsible research refers to the comprehensive approach of
proceeding in research, in ways that allow all stakeholders that are involved in the
processes of research and innovation at an early stage. It enables:
[5]
–– to obtain relevant knowledge on the consequences of the outcomes of their
actions and on the range of options open to them,
–– to effectively evaluate both outcomes and options in terms of societal needs
and moral values,
–– to use these considerations as functional requirements for design and
development of new research.
Responsible research aims mainly at being:
–– responsive: if research claims to be responsible, it has the capacity to change
its direction or shape when it becomes apparent that the current developments
do not match societal needs or are ethically contested; responsiveness refers
to the flexibility and capacity to change research and innovation processes
according to public values,
–– inclusive: inclusiveness asks researchers and innovators to involve diverse
stakeholders in the process to broaden and diversify the sources of expertise
and perspectives,
–– reflexive: reflexivity asks researchers and innovators to think about their own
ethical, political or social assumptions to enable them to consider their own
roles and responsibilities in research, as well as in public dialogue; reflexivity
should raise awareness for the importance of framing issues, problems and
the suggested solutions (Options for strengthening Responsible Research and
Innovation, European Commission, 2013).
The articles had undertaken the challenge of being the examples of a good practice
in the area of RER, and open-acces to them is one of the factors of transparency
in our professional development.
Katarzyna Potyrała