Ethical Principles

An article must be prepared and submitted in full compliance with not only national and international laws and ethics, but also the common ethical standards accepted by academicians. Therefore, all parties are responsible for adhering to ethical principles.

Author Responsibilities

• First of all, articles submitted to the Turkish Journal of Teacher Education must be original. Citations from other sources must be clearly stated.
• The names of individuals who do not contribute to the study must not appear among the authors.
• If there is a conflict of interest regarding the study, the process under Conflict of Interest must be followed.
• Raw data can be requested during the review process. In such a case, authors are asked to provide their raw data as soon as possible.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from related individuals, organizations, etc. If necessary.
• A manuscript cannot be sent to more than one journal at a time for evaluation.
• No author names can be added after submission.
• Author(s) must not contact persons involved in the evaluation process during the evaluation.

Ethical Appropriateness Checklist

• If you have used data, tools, or procedures from previously published sources, have you obtained necessary permissions from persons or institutions that can claim copyright?
• Have you cited the information from other published sources appropriately?
• Have you obtained official permissions for data collection/use, etc.?
• Have you obtained consent letters from your participants, or can you provide answers to the questions from the editor regarding this issue?
• Have you taken necessary precautions to maintain the confidentiality and safety of the participants or other parties who participated in your study?
• If there is more than one author, has each author read and agreed on the content of the submitted version?
• If there is more than one author, have all authors agreed on the order of names in the submitted version?
• If you have used copyrighted materials, have you received copyright permissions?

Editor’s Responsibilities

• Contributing to and facilitating the evaluation process.
• Appointing unbiased and double-blind reviewers.
• Maintaining and managing a smooth and fast evaluation process.
• Storing all records.
• Supporting freedom of thought.
• Being objective.
• Managing the evaluation and publication process, standing on intellectual property rights and ethical standards.
• Taking responsibility in controversial or conflicting cases.

Reviewer’s Responsibilities

• Reviewers should agree to review submissions only relevant to their specific fields.
• Reviewers should not have access to information about the author's identity. In the event of accessing or receiving such information, the evaluation process must be terminated.
• The evaluation process should be completed in total objectivity and confidentiality.
• If reviewers believe that there is a conflict of interest, they should refuse to evaluate the manuscript and inform the Editor of the issue.
• Reviewers can use the content of the manuscripts they evaluate only after acceptance. They cannot use any information from the manuscripts rejected for publication.
• Reviewers should point out relevant published work that is not yet cited.
• The evaluation process must be conducted objectively, based solely on the manuscript's content. Personal characteristics such as nationality, gender, religion, political views, or commercial conflicts must not interfere with the reviewers’ decisions.
• Reviewers should maintain a constructive, polite attitude towards submitted work. They should avoid degrading or offensive language in communication with authors.
• Reviewers should comply with evaluation deadlines and ethical responsibilities.

Publisher’s Responsibilities

• Editors are fully responsible for the publication processes. Because editors are accountable for decisions on submissions and published articles, the Publisher declares and guarantees that editorial decisions will remain free of any external influence.
• The Publisher holds the right of property and copyright of each published work and has the responsibility to keep a copy.
• The Publisher has the responsibility to take all the precautions to avoid scientific exploitation, plagiarism, and crimes against the Editor.

Protecting the Reliability of Scientific Work

Ethical considerations in reporting research results: A sound scientific method is based on reproducibility and verifiability. Data, including visual materials, cannot be manipulated, altered, or reduced to verify research hypotheses or obtain desirable results.

In case there is a mistake in the published version of an article, the author(s) must announce the mistake(s) to the audience. When such a mistake is recognized by the author(s), the Editor is informed for correction. Each corrected version and the corrections made are announced to the audience on the Journal’s website.

Data storage and sharing: In case the reliability of the submitted research is questioned, author(s) are responsible for providing the data used to the Editor. If authors fail to provide their data, the submission is rejected and is not accepted for evaluation again. Authors are required to store the data, applications, procedures, and other materials utilized in their submissions for at least five years. After publication, if other researchers or authors request, data can be shared. Before sharing data, information, codes, or symbols about participants’/subjects’ identities, they must be deleted. If an institution funds a study, the institution's rights must be protected, and relevant acknowledgement must be added. If authors wish to share data, there must be a signed letter of agreement between the author(s) and the owner(s) of the data outlining the aim(s), method(s), scope, conditions, and limits for the use of the data.

Re-publishing part of or the complete Data: Re-publishing data refers to when findings from an accepted paper are reused in another publication as if original. Re-publishing is an act of violation of copyright and related regulations because an author cannot give copyright permission for the same work to more than one entity. The full length or part of a previously published work cannot be published again or cited over the appropriate limits. A previously published work or one with a significantly similar scope cannot be submitted for publication again. Papers presented at conferences but not published in conference proceedings can be submitted for publication by citing the conference in a footnote. Documents that have been given and published in conference proceedings cannot be submitted for publication.

In case authors wish their work to reach other audiences, the following conditions must be met to republish the results:

• The republished version must be considerably shorter than the original one.
• A notification that the work has been previously published, and relevant referencing must be clearly given in a footnote.
• If the tables, graphs, or other visuals that have been used in the previously published version are used in re-publication, this must be clearly stated and referenced in a footnote.
• The original work must be appropriately added to the references list.

Findings should be presented in a unified manner and not limited to some parts. Publishing multiple studies, each covering a part of the same body of findings, can be misleading. However, in cases where research has a broader scope, is conducted over long periods, or has an interdisciplinary focus, multiple studies based on the same data source can be published. When studies are interdisciplinary, publishing findings in a single source may not be sufficient. If studies are conducted over an extended period, findings from different phases can contribute to the field and thus be published, provided the phase is stated. In this case, the research based on previous phases needs to be cited. If a study conducted over a long period is published following the studies based on the findings of earlier stages, repeating the same findings should be avoided, and quotes from such previous work should be cited.

The Editor should be notified when multiple studies based on the same research are submitted for evaluation. The editor decides whether the secondary studies meet the publication requirements.

Global or Self-Plagiarism: Authors cannot use other researchers’ opinions or thoughts as their own. Similarly, authors cannot use thoughts, opinions, or parts of research from their previous work without properly citing them.

Protection of Participants’ Rights and Interests

Confidentiality of the information obtained from participants should be maintained. Therefore, submitted work must not include information about participants’ identities. Participants should agree to be involved in research. When there is a hierarchical relationship between the researcher and the participants (e.g., teacher-student, director-teacher, etc.), researchers must not pressure participants to give consent. In particular, if an academician perceives his or her students as “potential subjects,” this would lead to misleading or subjective data resulting from reluctant student responses and to violations of participants’ rights and interests. Therefore, special care should be given not to force students to participate.

Suppose a study is based on the evaluation of a product or a service. In that case, the author(s) must not have a conflict of interest or a commercial benefit with the institution or the organization. In case of a conflict of interest or potential conflict, this should be noted in the study as a limitation, even if it is believed not to affect the objectivity of the results.

Protection of Intellectual Copyright

Authorship rights are gained by contributing substantially to research and taking responsibility for a published work. Considerable contribution may refer to: formulating research problems or hypotheses, developing research design or application procedures, conducting statistical analyses, interpreting results of analyses, or writing part of a study. Individuals contributing to these processes are listed among the study's authors. Individuals who contribute to a study other than those mentioned are cited in footnotes explaining their contributions. These contributors can help with research by creating data collection tools, providing guidance on data analysis methods, assisting with data collection, helping reach participants, or conducting routine observations.

To determine the order of authors in the author list, each author is evaluated based on his or her contributions to the study, and the one who has contributed the most is written at the top of the list. When the authors' contributions are considered equal, the list is arranged alphabetically, and a note explaining the order is added. Organizational or professional status or titles are not considered factors in determining the order of the author list.

According to Article 35 of the Intellectual and Arts Copyright Act Number 5846 (and Act number 4630 that changed it), any information taken from other sources must be cited and referenced. Act Number 4630 states that:

“Article 35 – Other sources can be quoted in the following cases:

• Quoting sentences or parts from a publicly known work in a scientific or literary work;
• Including themes, patterns, passages, or parts from the characteristics of a previously published musical composition into a musical work;
• Including acceptable portions of publicly known work of art or other published work in a scientific work in a way that the included part or the whole is clarified and its content is explained;
• Including acceptable portions of publicly known works of art in scientific conferences or lessons and using projections to talk about or explain the work.

Quotes or integrations must be made clear. The parts of the work quoted or integrated must be clearly and correctly cited.

In case the limits explained in the Act are violated, the act is considered a crime and imposes punishment regulated in Article 71 of Act Number 4630:

“Article 71 - (Changed Article: 01/11/1983 -2936/Article 11; Changed Article: 23/01/2008-5728 S.K./ Article 138)

Violating intellectual and artistic moral, commercial, or relevant rights protected under this Article:

• Individuals using, reproducing, changing, distributing, broadcasting using any audio or visual means, publishing, or selling illegally produced copies, lending, renting, purchasing for commercial purposes, importing or exporting, keeping for non-personal needs, or storing a work of art, a performance, a phonogram, or a production without obtaining legal permission from its owner are sentenced to imprisonment between 1 and 5 years and are fined.
• Individuals who give their names to the work of others are sentenced to between 6 months and 2 years and fined. If this act is followed by distributing or publishing the work, the maximum imprisonment is 5 years, and no fine is imposed.
• Individuals who publicly discuss the content of others’ work without obtaining legal permission are sentenced to up to 6 months' imprisonment.
• Individuals citing other work wrongly, insufficiently, or misleadingly are sentenced to up to 6 months' imprisonment.
• Individuals reproducing, distributing, or publishing others’ work, performances, phonograms, or products using other well-known individuals’ names are sentenced to imprisonment between 3 months and 1 year and are fined.

Individuals who commit crimes stated in Paragraph 1 of the Additional Article 4 of this Act and individuals who provide content information and continue to commit the crimes mentioned are sentenced to imprisonment between 3 months and 1 year in case there are no other reasons for harsher penalties.

If individuals who sell or buy illegally reproduced, distributed, or published others’ work, performances, phonograms, or products report the names of people from whom they have obtained the work before the prosecution process, they may receive remission or may not be sentenced at all.”

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal. They will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

This journal embraces an open-access policy. Open access would bring about beneficial outcomes for humanity, increasing the global change of information.