Research Ethics in Educational Sciences in Slovenia between 1991 and 2021

Žan Korošec

Summary:  Research ethics are a mandatory consideration for every study engaging human subjects, although their ethical stipulations are rarely without dilemmas. It is customary in education that we work with children and other vulnerable groups, and because of this, ethical reflection should be a continuous and comprehensive procedure. Taking the approach of a systematic review, this paper aims to uncover how research ethics were discussed in the educational sciences in Slovenia between 1991 and 2021. The review was executed by adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) guidelines, and we searched for literature across three databases, namely those of SCOPUS, the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection and COBISS. An advanced search located 149 records, yet upon administering inclusion/exclusion criteria and verifying eligibility, only three articles were ultimately included in the review. Further analysis revealed that although there was a lack of overall attention given to research ethics in education, the subject has been commonly approached from the perspective of norms and potential issues with regard to participants, while less scrutiny has been given to, for example, the researcher, committees and the philosophical background. Therefore, the systematic review provides several areas for future enhancement and suggestions for development.