Focus and Scope
The Brazilian Journal of Research in Education in Sciences (RBPEC) is the official journal of the Brazilian Association of Research in Science Education (ABRAPEC) and aims to publish original academic research papers in the field of Science Education.
Academic research papers are those reporting empirical or theoretical studies, which bring clear contributions to the knowledge of the field. In both cases,
- the adopted theoretical framework should be presented succinctly, but it should allow the reader who is not familiar with it to understand how its main concepts were used and to assess the relationships established through them;
- the objectives and research questions that guide the study must be explained in the text and justified;
- a methodology according to which the study was conducted (in the case of empirical work, both for data collection and analysis) should be presented in a detailed and justified way;
- in the case of works that involve human beings, the ethical aspects that rule this type of research must have been observed and the way in which this occurred must be made explicit;
- contributions to the field should be stated in a clear manner.
Any submission that contains experience reporting or presentation of instructional material of any kind will not be forwarded for evaluation.
Original papers are those not published in other media. They may have originated from academic papers and papers presented at scientific congresses, but the submitted text should never be (in whole or in part) equal to those works. In the case of papers presented at congresses, the paper must clearly be an expansion of the initial work. Any submission identified as previously published in another medium or whose text corresponds to the paper presented at a scientific congress - that is, that can be characterized as self-plagiarism - will not be sent for evaluation.
The field of Science Education comprises the subareas of Environmental Education, Education in Astronomy, Education in Biology, Education in Physics, Education in Geosciences, Education in Chemistry and Health Education. Considering that research in these subareas can relate to other areas (such as Epistemology, History and Philosophy of Science, Linguistics, Mathematics, Psychology and Sociology of Education, etc.), papers focused on some of them can be submitted as long as the interface and contributions to Science Education are clearly explained. Any manuscript related to any of the sub-areas mentioned above (but not to the Education area thereof), as well as general aspects of Education or other areas (but without a clear relationship or implication for the field of Science Education) will not be forwarded for evaluation.
The target audience of the Brazilian Journal of Research in Science Education is composed of researchers, undergraduate and graduate students of the area of Science Education interested in research developed in this field.
