Ethical Standards

Ethical Standards Statement

Mahaguru: Jurnal Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, academic integrity, transparency, accountability, and scholarly responsibility. These ethical standards guide authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher in all stages of manuscript submission, editorial screening, peer review, revision, copyediting, publication, and post-publication management.

As a journal in elementary school teacher education, Mahaguru gives special attention to ethical issues related to school-based research, classroom practices, teacher education, child-centered pedagogy, inclusive education, literacy and numeracy, educational assessment, learning media, character education, local wisdom, and educational contexts in rural, remote, frontier, and underserved areas.

All parties involved in the publication process are expected to uphold honesty, fairness, confidentiality, respect for research participants, responsible use of educational data, and proper acknowledgment of intellectual contributions.

Ethics Navigation

Core Ethical Principles

By submitting a manuscript to Mahaguru, authors confirm that the manuscript is original, has not been published previously, is not under consideration elsewhere, and has been prepared according to ethical principles of scholarly writing and educational research.

1. Authors must ensure that all ideas, theories, data, classroom observations, learning materials, teaching media, instruments, images, tables, figures, and other sources from previous works are properly cited and referenced.
2. Authors must report research findings honestly and objectively without fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, or manipulation of data, images, assessment results, interview transcripts, or classroom documentation.
3. Authors must not submit the same or substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.
4. Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, professional, or personal conflicts of interest that may influence the research or interpretation of results.
5. Authors must ensure that all listed authors have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, implementation, analysis, writing, or revision of the manuscript.
6. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have reviewed, approved, and agreed to the submission and publication of the manuscript.
7. Authors must obtain permission to use copyrighted or restricted materials, including textbooks, teaching modules, images, student work samples, learning media, assessment tools, photographs, and school documents.
8. If authors discover a significant error in a submitted or published manuscript, they must promptly notify the editor and cooperate in correction, withdrawal, or retraction procedures.

Editors are responsible for ensuring that all manuscripts are handled fairly, confidentially, professionally, and in accordance with the journal’s focus, scope, publication ethics, and editorial policies.

1. Editors evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit, relevance to elementary school teacher education, originality, clarity, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and contribution to primary education.
2. Editors must not discriminate against authors based on gender, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, institutional affiliation, cultural background, political views, or personal identity.
3. Editors must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, author correspondence, research data, and editorial decisions.
4. Editors are responsible for selecting appropriate reviewers with relevant expertise and for ensuring that the review process is fair, objective, and constructive.
5. Editors must not use unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts for personal research, teaching, publication, or professional benefit without written permission from the authors.
6. Editors must take appropriate action when ethical concerns arise, including plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, data manipulation, privacy violations, or misuse of school-based research materials.
7. Editors may request clarification from authors regarding informed consent, institutional permission, ethical approval, data protection, use of images, or permission to use student-related materials.

Reviewers support the journal in maintaining scholarly quality, methodological rigor, ethical reliability, and relevance to elementary school teacher education.

1. Reviewers should accept review invitations only when the manuscript matches their expertise and when they can complete the review within the requested timeframe.
2. Reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents and must not share, distribute, discuss, or use manuscript content outside the review process.
3. Reviewers must provide objective, respectful, evidence-based, and constructive feedback to help authors improve the manuscript.
4. Reviewers should evaluate originality, relevance, conceptual clarity, methodological quality, data analysis, ethical compliance, and contribution to primary education.
5. Reviewers should alert editors to suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data manipulation, inappropriate citation, unethical research practice, or substantial overlap with other works.
6. Reviewers must decline the review if they have conflicts of interest involving the authors, institutions, research topic, funding, or collaboration history.
7. Information obtained through peer review must not be used for personal advantage, academic competition, or any purpose outside the editorial process.

Child Protection and School-Based Research Ethics

Research in elementary education often involves children, teachers, parents, school leaders, classroom activities, and school documents. Authors must ensure that such research is conducted with care, respect, and protection of participants’ rights and welfare.

1. Research involving elementary school pupils must prioritize child safety, dignity, privacy, and psychological well-being.
2. Authors must obtain appropriate informed consent from participants or legal guardians when required, and permission from schools or relevant institutions where applicable.
3. Children must not be pressured to participate in research, interviews, observations, documentation, testing, or learning experiments.
4. Authors must protect the identity of children and avoid publishing names, faces, classroom identifiers, or sensitive details unless permission has been obtained and publication is ethically justified.
5. Research involving assessment results, student work, learning difficulties, disability, family background, or sensitive school data must be reported responsibly and respectfully.
6. Authors must avoid practices that may stigmatize pupils, teachers, families, schools, or communities.

Inclusive Education and Vulnerable Participants

Studies related to inclusive education, children with special needs, learning difficulties, rural schools, low-resource classrooms, minority groups, or vulnerable communities must be conducted with sensitivity and responsibility.

1. Authors must use respectful language when describing learners, teachers, schools, families, and communities.
2. Research should avoid discrimination, stereotyping, deficit labeling, or unfair comparison of pupils, teachers, schools, or regions.
3. Authors must protect the dignity and confidentiality of participants with disabilities, learning barriers, socio-economic challenges, or other vulnerable conditions.
4. Studies in underserved or limited-resource schools should present challenges fairly while also recognizing local strengths, teacher creativity, community support, and contextual realities.
5. Research findings must not be used to stigmatize schools, communities, or geographic areas.

Educational Data, Assessment, and Classroom Documentation

Authors must manage educational data responsibly, especially data obtained from classrooms, schools, pupils, teachers, parents, educational assessments, learning media trials, and school records.

1. Student assessment results, test scores, classroom observations, interview transcripts, and learning documentation must be collected and reported ethically.
2. Personal data must be anonymized or protected unless participants have given explicit permission for disclosure.
3. Authors must not manipulate assessment data, classroom outcomes, statistical results, or learning media effectiveness claims.
4. Images, videos, student work samples, school names, classroom documentation, and teacher materials must be used with appropriate permission when required.
5. Research instruments, rubrics, teaching materials, or learning media adapted from other sources must be properly acknowledged.
6. Authors should provide sufficient methodological explanation so that readers can understand the validity, limitations, and context of the study.

Local Wisdom, Community Knowledge, and Remote School Contexts

Mahaguru welcomes studies on local wisdom, contextual pedagogy, rural education, remote schools, frontier areas, and underserved educational settings. Authors must present local communities and school contexts respectfully, accurately, and ethically.

1. Authors must acknowledge communities, teachers, informants, schools, cultural sources, local practices, and documentation sources appropriately.
2. Local knowledge, cultural expressions, learning traditions, and community-based practices must not be misrepresented, exploited, or removed from their educational and cultural context.
3. Studies involving remote or underserved schools should avoid negative labeling and should present challenges with fairness, empathy, and contextual understanding.
4. Authors must obtain permission where required for the use of photographs, local teaching materials, community narratives, school documents, or cultural learning resources.
5. Authors should ensure that research contributes positively to educational knowledge, teacher development, and equitable primary education.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Authorship

Conflict of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose any potential conflict of interest that may influence or appear to influence the interpretation, evaluation, review, editorial decision, or publication of a manuscript.

Conflicts of interest may include financial relationships, institutional affiliation, academic competition, personal relationships, professional collaboration, funding support, school partnerships, or other conditions that may affect impartial judgment.

When a conflict of interest is identified, the editorial team may assign another reviewer, transfer editorial responsibility, request additional disclosure, or take other steps to maintain fairness and integrity.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

Mahaguru is committed to preserving the integrity of the published scholarly record. Published articles may require correction, expression of concern, or retraction when significant problems are identified after publication.

Publication Misconduct

Mahaguru does not tolerate any form of publication misconduct. Misconduct may occur before submission, during review, after acceptance, or after publication.

Publication misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

• plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and unattributed paraphrasing;
• duplicate submission or redundant publication;
• data fabrication, falsification, or manipulation of educational data;
• misrepresentation of classroom findings, learning outcomes, or assessment results;
• unauthorized use of student work, school documents, images, learning media, or research instruments;
• violation of participant privacy, child protection, informed consent, or institutional permission;
• citation manipulation or false references;
• misrepresentation of authorship, affiliation, funding, or research contribution.

When ethical violations are identified, the journal may take appropriate action, including request for clarification, manuscript rejection, withdrawal, correction, retraction, expression of concern, or notification to relevant institutions when necessary.

Ethical Oversight

The editorial team of Mahaguru reserves the right to investigate suspected ethical violations involving submitted or published manuscripts. Allegations of misconduct will be handled seriously, fairly, confidentially, and proportionally.

The journal may consult authors, reviewers, editorial board members, institutions, or relevant authorities when necessary to resolve ethical concerns and protect the integrity of scholarly communication.

Copyright and License

Authors retain copyright of their published work. By publishing in Mahaguru: Jurnal Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar, authors grant the journal the right to publish and disseminate the article through the journal platform and related academic indexing or archiving services.