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Editorial Policy


Article 1 (Academic freedom and social responsibility)

Researchers shall have basic rights to academic freedom and they shall have the following social responsibilities and obligations:

  1. Shall acknowledge the academic legacies of groups with different thoughts, religions, ages, genders, races, social classes, or cultures without any prejudice.
  2. Shall be open to criticism of their research and skeptical of their knowledge.
  3. Shall be willing to correct errors when persuasive evidence that refutes their arguments is found.
  4. Shall review new research questions, methodologies and theoretical approaches with non-biased attitudes.

Article 2 (Approval by institutions)

When approval by any institution is required for conducting research, researchers shall provide accurate information on their research plans to the institution and gain its approval before conducting the research and they shall conduct the research pursuant to the approved research plans.

Article 3 (Responsibility for research participants)

Researchers shall have the following responsibilities to research participants:

  1. Shall respect research participants' right not to be infringed on their personality and privacy and their right to autonomous decisions.
  2. Shall take actions necessary to ensure research participants' safety and welfare and prevent them from being exposed to dangers.
  3. Shall not cause psychological or physical damage to research participants and shall immediately stop research if research participants show unexpected responses or feel pain.

Article 4 (Agreement to participation in research)

  1. Participation in research shall be determined by free will. Therefore, researchers shall obtain agreement to participate in research from the participants. When obtaining agreement, researchers should inform the participants of the following items and provide opportunities for them to ask questions and receive answers about these items (In the case of minors, agreement shall be received from legal guardians or representatives):
    The duration, procedure, and purpose of the research.
    Right to participate in the research and withdraw at any time.
    Results expected when the research participant refused to participate in the research or withdrew their participation before its completion.
    Potential dangers, pain or harmful effects expected to affect the spontaneity of participation.
    Benefits expected to be obtained by participating in the research.
    Limitations in confidentiality.
    Compensation for participation.
  2. Researchers who conduct intervention research that includes experimental treatment shall clearly inform the participants of the following items at the beginning of the research:
    The nature of the experimental treatment.
    Services that will be available or unavailable to the control group.
    Method of assigning the participants to the treatment group or the control group.
    Treatment alternatives available for individuals who decline to participate in the research or wish to withdraw after the research has begun.
    Compensation or monetary reward for participation in the research.

Article 5 (Agreement to voice or image recording for research)

When participants’ voices or images are necessary for data collection, researchers shall obtain agreement from research participants before recording; however, the following cases shall be exceptional:

  1. When the content of the research is naturally observed in public places or the records are not expected to be used to disclose individuals’ identity or do harm to individuals.
  2. When deception is included in the research design and thus agreement to the use of records shall be obtained after recording.

Article 6 (Agreement to use sandpictures, paintings, drawings, or recordings for publishing)

When participants’ sandpictures, paintings, drawings, or recordings of what participants said is needed to be published, participants’ written permission should be obtained directly from participants.

Article 7 (Participants dependent on researchers such as clients, patients and students)

  1. When researchers conduct research on persons dependent on them such as clients, patients and students, the researchers shall take actions to protect them from harmful results from their refusal to participate or withdraw from participation.
  2. If participation in the research is essential to a subject being studied or is an opportunity to receive additional credits, alternative activities should be provided to the students who study the subject and the students should be allowed to select for themselves.

Article 8 (Exemption from agreement to research)

Researchers may not get agreement from research participants in the following cases:

  1. When the research is considered not to cause any pain or damage,
    Research into educational practices implemented in education contexts, curricula or classroom operating methods.
    Anonymous questionnaires, natural observation or data collection research in which exposure of research participants’ responses does not place the participants under the risk of criminal or civil responsibility or do harm to their financial condition, possibility of employment or reputation and research participants’ participation is kept secret.
    Research conducted in organizational contexts related to occupational or organizational efficiency that does not threaten the possibility of employment for the participants in which participants’ participation is kept secret.
  2. When allowed by the law of the country or the rules of the institution.

Article 9 (Compensation for participation in research)

  1. Researchers shall appropriately compensate for participation in research. However, researchers shall not provide excessive monetary or other compensation to the extent that the compensation would oblige participation in research.
  2. When professional services are provided as compensation for participation in research, researcher should make clear not only the nature but also the risk, obligation and limitation of the services.

Article 10 (Deception in research)

  1. Researchers shall not conduct research that involves deception unless the use of deceptive techniques is justified based on any scientific, educational or applicable values expected from the research, and it has been determined that effective alternative procedures that do not involve deception are not possible.
  2. Researchers should provide information that the research may cause physical or severe emotional pain to those who would participate in the research involved in experiments as soon as possible, when participation in research has been completed if possible or at the latest before data collection is completed to give opportunities to participants to withdraw their experimental data.

Article 11 (Ex post facto reporting to research participants)

  1. Unless providing information on the nature, results and conclusion of research would cause damage to scientific and humane values, researchers should provide opportunities for research participants to obtain related information.
  2. If a researcher has come to know that a research procedure caused damage to participants, he/she should immediately take action to minimize the damage, and if later research includes the same procedure, the research design should be revised not to include the procedure.

Article 12 (Research result reporting)

  1. Researchers should not falsely make data or results that do not exist.
  2. Researchers should not manipulate, modify or delete data or results to distort research results.
  3. Researchers should make data anonymous if individual research subjects can be identified in the data before reporting the data.
  4. If researchers find serious errors in their published data, they should take actions to correct the errors using appropriate publishing means such as correction, cancellation and tables of errata.

Article 13 (Plagiarism)

Researchers shall not plagiarize others’ ideas, research contents or results without justifiable approval or citation and should specify original authors and sources for others’ research ideas and tools as well as any textual borrowing. They should also indicate sources for their own previous works.

Article 14 (Authors)

  1. Researchers shall take responsibility as authors and shall be recognized only for those research works that they actually produced or contributed to.
  2. The authors or the order of authors of papers or other published works should accurately reflect the relative degrees of contribution regardless of the authors’ relative statuses. Becoming an author or being recognized for the achievement as the first author just because a researcher is in a certain position is not justified. Small contributions to research or writing shall be appropriately acknowledged in footnotes, prefaces, and acknowledgements.
  3. Except for exceptional situations, such as papers jointly written by multiple authors based on a student’s master’s or doctoral dissertation, the student shall be the first author.

Article 15 (Research data sharing for re-verification of results)

  1. After publishing research results, if other researchers request research data in order to re-verify the published results through reanalysis, the researcher shall provide the data if the confidentiality of research participants can be protected and legal rights for the data possessed do not prohibit the disclosure of the data.
  2. The researchers provided with the data pursuant to the above point may use it only for the foregoing purpose and shall obtain prior written consent if they wish to use the data for any other purpose.

Article 16 (Examination)

Researchers who examine submitted papers, manuscripts for conference presentations or research plans shall keep the identities of submitters and submitted contents secret and respect the copyright of the authors.


Verification of violations of research ethics


Article 17 (Parties responsible for the verification of violations of research ethics)

  1. The editorial committee shall primarily review whether the processes of examination and publication of all submitted papers observed these ethical guidelines.
  2. When ethical deliberation of any submitted paper is necessary, the editorial committee shall request the research ethics committee for deliberation.
  3. If any problem has been found in the integrity or ethicality of any of the research processes in a submitted paper, it shall be notified to the author and the research institute to which the author belongs.

Article 18 (Principle of verification of research ethics)

  1. The responsibility to prove the fact of a violation of the regulations for research ethics shall lie on the research ethics committee.
  2. The research ethics committee shall guarantee the rights and opportunities to state opinions, raise objections and defend equally to the requester for deliberation and the subject of deliberation and shall inform related procedures to them in advance.
  3. This association shall make efforts to ensure that the research ethics committee can maintain independency and fairness without being subject to unjust pressure or interference.

Article 19 (Procedure to verify research ethics)

  1. The research ethics committee shall deliberate on the truth of problems in research ethics raised for papers already published in this journal or those being examined.
  2. Before beginning deliberation of items received, the research ethics committee may determine procedures for deliberation such as in-house examination or whether external deliberation committee members’ should participate in relation to the organization of the deliberation committee through discussion.
  3. The research ethics committee shall record the entire processes of deliberation in writing and shall keep written decisions of deliberation after having them signed by all research ethics committee members.

Article 20 (Reporting of cheating and receipt of the reports)

Informants may report cheating to the secretariat of the Korean Association of Child Welfare of the secretariat of the editorial committee in the form of documentary records such as writing and e-mails and the reporting shall be submitted under their real names. However, anonymous reports in writing or e-mails containing the names of papers (or the names of research tasks) and concrete contents and evidence of cheating may be handled as if they are reports under real names.

Article 21 (Request for attendance and data submission)

  1. The committee may request informants, persons under investigation, witnesses or reference witnesses for attendance for statements. In this case, persons under investigation should accede to the request without fail.
  2. The committee may request persons under investigation to submit data and may seize or retain relevant research data on persons linked to cheating subject to approval by the head of the relevant research institute in order to preserve evidencing data.

Article 22 (Protection of the rights of informants and persons under investigation and confidentiality)

  1. The identity of informants shall not be directly or indirectly disclosed in any event and care should be used to prevent the honor or rights of persons under investigation from being infringed until the verification of cheating is completed.
  2. All matters related to investigations shall be kept secret and those who directly or indirectly participated in investigations shall not unjustly disclose any information obtained in the process of investigation or performing their duties. However, the information may be disclosed through a resolution by the committee if there is justifiable necessity of disclosure.

Article 23 (Guarantee of opportunities to raise objections and explain)

The committee shall provide sufficient opportunities to raise objections and explain to persons under investigation for reported violations of research ethics.

Article 24 (Judgment)

  1. The committee shall finalize the contents of and procedure for investigation based on the contents of the objection raised and the explanation.
  2. Judgment on cheating in research shall be made with the attendance of the majority of the committee members on the register and the consent of at least 2/3 of attending committee members.

Article 25 (Follow-up actions for the results of verification of violations of research ethics)

  1. The research ethics committee shall notify the results of deliberation on the violation of research ethics to the relevant subject of deliberation and the relevant research institute.
  2. If the rationality and validity of the contents or results of deliberation are considered problematic, the committee may conduct additional investigations or request for the submission of related data.
  3. For authors and papers that have been identified to have violated research ethics, the research ethics committee shall impose the following sanctions depending on the seriousness of offenses.
    Delete the paper from the paper list of the relevant journal.
    Prohibit the paper submitter from submitting paper later (for at least two years).
    Announce on the Internet homepage of the association.
    Notify the fact of plagiarism to the institution to which participants in the violation of research ethics belong.
    Notify the details of the relevant contents to the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Article 26 (Education on research ethics)

This association may educate its members on research ethics, including the codes of research ethics that must be observed by researchers in the course of conducting research, the scope of cheating, and methods to cope with cheating and verifying procedures.