Editorial Policies & Submission Guidelines
Editorial Policies & Submission Guidelines
1. Guidelines for Submitting Manuscripts
The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies publishes high-quality analytical research and empirical field studies. Adhering strictly to the principles of diversity and inclusivity, the journal fosters global scholarly collaboration among researchers from all nations and academic backgrounds.
The journal cordially invites original manuscript submissions within the following fields:
Psychology and Educational Sciences
Art Therapy and Special Education
Developmental, Clinical, Applied, and Psychotherapy Psychology
Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Counseling, Guidance, and Educational Administration
2. Pre-submission Optimization and Metadata Rigor
To maximize online visibility, citation impact, and search engine discoverability (e.g., via Google Scholar), authors must meticulously refine their manuscript titles, abstracts, and keywords prior to submission. A precise title, combined with a comprehensive abstract reflecting the core findings and highly relevant keywords, significantly enhances global indexing potential. Furthermore, submissions must explicitly include complete author metadata—specifically full names, institutional affiliations, countries, and professional email addresses—to ensure accurate indexing, institutional tracking, and long-term visibility.
3. Manuscript Submission Protocol and Publication Ethics
To submit a manuscript, authors must visit the journal’s official homepage, access the "Manuscript Submission Guidelines" portal, and strictly comply with the outlined technical and formatting requirements. All formal inquiries regarding the submission workflow or editorial process should be directed to the editorial board via the official communication channels provided on the website to ensure a prompt and detailed response.
In alignment with international publishing standards, the journal enforces a strict code of ethics for scientific research and publication. Authors are legally and academically bound by these ethical mandates. In instances of confirmed plagiarism, data manipulation, or redundant submission, the journal will immediately implement all standard disciplinary measures, including immediate desk rejection or article retraction. Aggrieved parties or individuals who detect any form of academic misconduct are encouraged to contact the editorial board, which will promptly investigate the allegations and enforce strict penalties if the violation is proven.
4. Peer Review Policy
I. Core Principles and Double-Blind System
The journal employs a strict double-blind peer review system, ensuring that the identities of both authors and reviewers remain completely anonymous throughout the entire evaluation pipeline. All participants in the editorial process—including the editor-in-chief, associate editors, and reviewers—are bound by absolute confidentiality mandates. Reviewers must evaluate submitted manuscripts objectively, impartially, and in accordance with accepted scientific standards, providing a detailed report within the timeframes stipulated by the editorial board.
The journal maintains comprehensive academic profiles of its reviewers (including academic degrees, institutional affiliations, country, and specific research interests). Evaluators must possess verified expertise in the manuscript's exact subject matter and are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest to the editorial board immediately upon receiving an evaluation invitation. If unforeseen circumstances prevent a reviewer from completing the evaluation, they must notify the editorial office promptly to allow for swift reassignment.
II. Reviewer Exclusion and Conflict of Interest Criteria
To ensure absolute objectivity and eliminate institutional or financial bias, the journal retains sole authority over reviewer selection. The editorial board is under no obligation to invite author-recommended or opposing reviewers, and explicitly forbids the use of author-suggested referees at any stage of the submission process.
Reviewers will strictly not be appointed under the following conditions:
Institutional Affiliation: The reviewer belongs to the same institution as the author or any of the co-authors.
Financial Bias: The reviewer is affiliated with the agency or institution funding the research manuscript.
Verification Issues (Personal Email Accounts): The reviewer provides a personal email address (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) that cannot be verified against an official institutional profile or department directory. Authors must ensure their referees' professional emails and ORCID iDs are accessible. If exceptional institutional circumstances prevent a researcher from obtaining a professional email, a formal justification must be submitted upon manuscript registration.
Note on Misconduct: Any proven manipulation or collusion regarding reviewer nomination will result in decisive disciplinary action against both the author and the reviewer. This includes the immediate retraction of the article (if already published) and the permanent removal of the reviewer from the journal’s database.
III. Stages of the Double-Blind Peer Review Process
Phase 1: Initial Review and Plagiarism Screening
Upon submission, every manuscript undergoes a preliminary evaluation by the editorial board to ensure strict alignment with the journal’s scope, formal formatting guidelines, and substantive academic standards. Concurrently, a rigorous plagiarism screening is performed. The maximum allowable similarity index is 20%. If a manuscript exceeds this threshold, the author is promptly notified and provided with a detailed similarity report, requiring them to revise and resubmit the manuscript for further consideration.
Phase 2: Anonymization (Blinding) and Peer Distribution
Once a manuscript successfully passes the initial screening, all identifying author metadata (names, institutional affiliations, and countries) is completely anonymized. To facilitate this double-blind process, authors must submit their work divided into the following separate, modular files:
Title Page & Author Metadata: Full manuscript title, author names, institutional affiliations, countries, and professional email addresses.
Anonymized Manuscript: The complete text of the article, strictly stripped of any author identification, institutional markers, or self-revealing citations.
Core Identifiers: A dedicated file containing only the title and the author names.
Abstract File: A document containing exclusively the manuscript title and the abstract.
CRediT Statement: A detailed breakdown detailing the specific nature of each researcher's contribution to the study.
Following successful anonymization, the manuscript is distributed to at least two independent external reviewers who possess verified expertise in the exact subject matter. To uphold the core principle of avoiding conflicts of interest, the manuscript will strictly never be assigned to reviewers who are affiliated with the authors' institution or who contributed to the funding of the research project.
Phase 3: Evaluation Criteria and Editorial Decisions
Reviewers critique each manuscript based on its originality, methodological rigor, objectivity, and prospective scientific contribution to the field. Evaluators must submit a comprehensive, structured report concluding with one of the following recommendations:
Acceptance without revisions.
Acceptance subject to minor revisions.
Re-evaluation required following major revisions.
Final Rejection (accompanied by a detailed rationale highlighting the manuscript's critical deficiencies). In the event of a rejection, the detailed feedback is shared with the author while maintaining absolute reviewer anonymity.
Phase 4: Final Editorial Decision
The editor-in-chief evaluates the reviewers’ reports to render a final decision, which is formally communicated to the author alongside a synthesis report. In instances of conflicting recommendations (e.g., acceptance versus rejection), a third independent reviewer is appointed to adjudicate and resolve the discrepancy.
Phase 5: Safeguarding Against Conflicts of Interest
To preserve the absolute independence and integrity of the peer review process, the journal strictly mitigates all potential conflicts of interest. Any evaluator affiliated with the author’s institution, or currently engaged in a collaborative research project with the authors, is automatically excluded from the process. This preventative measure ensures flawless objectivity and eliminates scientific bias that could compromise research quality or prejudice the evaluation outcome.
II. Editorial Criteria
Academic Merit and Objectivity: Manuscripts submitted to the journal are evaluated solely on their scientific merit, originality, structural rigor, and substantive contribution to scientific knowledge, ensuring complete impartiality throughout the assessment process.
Scope Alignment: Submissions must strictly align with the journal’s defined research areas and specialized disciplines to be considered for evaluation.
Ethical Reporting: Any observed or suspected academic misconduct relating to submitted manuscripts will be formally reported and investigated.
Editorial Coordination and Confidentiality: Editors maintain continuous communication with reviewers to ensure an accurate, efficient, and objective peer review process. Absolute confidentiality is guaranteed, with the identities of both authors and reviewers rigorously protected from disclosure to any third party.
Policy Compliance: Strict adherence to the journal’s editorial policies and publication protocols is mandatory to safeguard institutional credibility and ensure the highest quality of published research.
Plagiarism Screening: All submitted manuscripts undergo systematic screening using advanced plagiarism detection software. Submissions must strictly respect the maximum similarity threshold defined in the publication guidelines.
III. Publisher’s Standards
Ethical Standards Enforcement: The publisher is strictly responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with international ethical publishing standards to preserve the journal’s scholarly reputation and integrity.
Institutional Support and Copyright Protection: The publisher provides comprehensive administrative and technical support to advance the journal's development while legally safeguarding copyrights in accordance with its established intellectual property policy.
Ethical Intervention: The publisher maintains the authority and obligation to intervene decisively to prohibit or retract any publication that violates international ethical publishing codes.
IV. Authorship Criteria and Multi-Author Integrity
Author Metadata and Eligibility: The list of authors must strictly include only those who can legitimately claim authorship based on substantial intellectual contributions. Complete metadata for each author—encompassing full names, institutional affiliations, countries, professional email addresses, and ORCID iDs—must be provided upon submission.
Corresponding Author Liability: The corresponding author (who submits the manuscript and manages direct communication with the journal) assumes primary accountability for all aspects of the work. This includes ensuring that any questions regarding the accuracy, validity, or integrity of any part of the manuscript are thoroughly investigated and appropriately resolved.
Substantial Contribution and Accountability: Each listed author must have contributed sufficiently to the research to take public responsibility for their respective portions of the content. A detailed CRediT statement (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) specifying the exact nature of each author's involvement must be submitted as a separate file alongside the manuscript.
Multicenter and Large Group Submissions: When a manuscript is produced by a large, multicenter collaborative group, the collective must explicitly identify the specific individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These designated individuals must fully meet all established authorship criteria.
Credit and Authorship Order: Primary authorship, the sequential order of authors, and other publication credits must reflect the relative scientific or professional contributions of the participating individuals, strictly irrespective of their academic status or seniority.
Student Thesis Protection: A student must typically be listed as the principal (lead) author on any co-authored publication derived substantially from their master's thesis or doctoral dissertation. In the event of a violation, and upon receiving a detailed formal report from the aggrieved party, the journal will implement rigorous disciplinary measures to ensure intellectual property rights are fully protected.
V. The Corresponding Author
Primary Accountability: The corresponding author bears sole primary responsibility for managing all communications with the journal throughout the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication processes. This individual ensures compliance with all administrative and editorial mandates, including the provision of accurate authorship metadata, institutional ethics committee approvals, and comprehensive documentation for experiments or field studies. The corresponding author is also responsible for the accurate completion of conflict-of-interest forms and disclosures, though specific administrative tasks may be delegated to co-authors.
Legal and Post-Publication Duties: The corresponding author executes the formal publication and copyright agreements on behalf of all co-authors. Following publication, their institutional contact details are displayed within the article. The corresponding author must remain available to address scientific critiques and cooperate fully with the journal’s editorial board regarding any post-publication inquiries, data access requests, or clarifications.
5. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies is strictly committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity in scientific publishing. Authors are strongly encouraged to adhere to the international ethical benchmarks for researchers established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal meticulously implements and enforces COPE’s core principles and publishing guidelines across all stages of the editorial and evaluation workflows.
6. Author Agreement, Licensing, and Open Access Policy
I. Creative Commons Licensing Framework
As a fully open-access journal, The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies operates under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Under this framework, users are legally permitted to:
Share: Copy and redistribute the published material in any medium or format.
Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes.
These permissions are strictly subject to the following statutory conditions:
Attribution: Users must provide appropriate credit, supply a direct link to the license, and explicitly indicate if any modifications were made.
Non-Commercial: The material may strictly not be utilized for commercial purposes under any circumstances.
No Additional Restrictions: Users may not apply legal terms or technological measures (such as DRM) that legally or practically restrict others from exercising the rights permitted by the license.
II. Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights
The journal operates a progressive copyright policy where authors retain full, unrestricted copyright and publishing rights to their work. Ownership remains explicitly with the authors, as designated in the article metadata pages.
By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) legally warrant that the work is entirely original, has not been previously published (including in journals, books, or online repositories), and is not concurrently under evaluation by any other venue. The editorial board reserves the absolute right to reject any submission that breaches these exclusivity and originality requirements.
III. Self-Archiving Policy (Green Open Access)
The journal actively encourages and permits self-archiving. Authors are fully authorized to deposit all versions of their articles—including the preprint (submitted version), the postprint (accepted version after peer review), and the final publisher’s version (Version of Record)—into institutional digital repositories, university servers, specialized archives, or personal websites. This self-archiving is permitted immediately upon publication, with zero embargo periods or chronological restrictions.
7. Open Access Statement
The journal operates under a fully open-access publishing model, ensuring that all accepted manuscripts are made immediately and permanently accessible online. Upon publication, readers and researchers worldwide can view, download, and reference the full text of articles without economic or technical barriers, fostering global knowledge dissemination.
8. Manuscript Preparation and Anonymization Protocols
To support the journal's rigorous double-blind peer review policy, authors must completely anonymize their main manuscript text. All direct indicators of authorship—including full names, institutional affiliations, countries, professional contact details, and self-identifying textual references—must be thoroughly omitted from the primary file.
To facilitate this workflow, submissions must be uploaded as separate, modular files:
Title Page & Author Metadata: A document containing the full manuscript title, complete author names, institutional affiliations, countries, and professional email addresses.
Anonymized Manuscript: The complete text of the article, formatted strictly without any author information or institutional markers.
Core Identifiers: A concise file containing exclusively the manuscript title and author names.
Abstract File: A document comprising solely the manuscript title and the structured abstract.
CRediT Statement: A dedicated statement specifying the distinct nature and individual contribution of each researcher involved in the study.
9. Manuscript Formatting and Technical Specifications
I. Originality, Exclusivity, and Anti-Plagiarism Mandates
All submitted manuscripts must represent entirely original research and must not be under evaluation or concurrently submitted elsewhere. Authors must formally supply a declaration of exclusivity upon submission. Concurrently submitting a manuscript to multiple venues is strictly prohibited; any violation will result in the immediate and permanent banning of the author from publishing in the journal, alongside appropriate institutional or legal actions for academic misconduct. Furthermore, authors are legally and academically liable for any damages caused to the journal's operations or reputation.
II. Academic Integrity and Ethical Disclosures
Authors must adhere strictly to established international scientific standards, upholding absolute academic integrity in sourcing, citation, and documentation.
Conflict of Interest: Authors bear full responsibility for explicitly disclosing any potential conflicts of interest upon manuscript submission.
Funding Acknowledgments: The research funding source, sponsoring institution, or grant details must be clearly specified during the submission process.
Retractions and Misconduct: If data manipulation, plagiarism, or critical structural errors are proven post-publication, the article will be immediately retracted from the journal's official database. Aggrieved parties are encouraged to notify the editorial board, which will execute decisive disciplinary protocols.
III. Language, Methodological Rigor, and Formatting Styles
Linguistic Quality: Manuscripts must be entirely free of grammatical, spelling, typographical, or stylistic errors before submission.
Empirical and Field Studies: Submissions detailing empirical field research must meticulously follow established methodological procedures. This includes a robust problem statement, clear research design, detailed sampling techniques, validated instruments, precise statistical analyses, and a comprehensive discussion of results.
Citation and Reference Guidelines: The journal strictly adopts the American Psychological Association (APA) citation style. Authors must ensure that all in-text citations precisely match the final bibliographical reference list, which must be fully formatted according to the latest APA edition.
Submission File Formats: While there is no rigid layout template required for initial Microsoft Word submissions, authors must ensure that heading levels (hierarchies) and document sections are clearly defined. Submissions compiled in LaTeX format are highly welcomed and encouraged.
10. Guidelines for Illustrations, Figures, and Graphics
All illustrations, photographs, and graphs must be submitted in high-resolution electronic formats to ensure optimal publishing quality.
Color and Grayscale Compatibility: Authors should note that figures will be published in full color online, but will appear in grayscale (black and white) in the print edition (unless alternative arrangements are formally established). Consequently, all graphical elements must remain completely legible when converted to grayscale. Authors are strongly encouraged to utilize distinctive visual shading patterns, varying line weights, or dashed/dotted lines rather than relying solely on color contrast to differentiate data points.
11. Manuscript Submission and Technical Requirements
Prior to submission, authors must thoroughly review the journal’s technical guidelines and ensure they have registered an active account on the online submission platform. The technical requirements for final article components include:
Format Uniformity: The file type and format for standalone figures must strictly align with the specifications required for the text components of the manuscript.
Captions and Annotations: Every figure must be accompanied by a concise, descriptive caption embedded appropriately within the text.
Copyright Compliance: Authors are strictly prohibited from using copyrighted images or graphics without securing formal, written permission from the copyright holder.
Final Artwork Submission: Upon manuscript acceptance, the high-resolution, final production-ready image files must be uploaded alongside the final version of the article.
12. ORCID Integration and Mandates
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent, and rigorous peer review process, The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies is an official supporting member and contributor to the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) initiative.
ORCID provides a unique, persistent digital identifier that accurately distinguishes researchers, eliminating author name ambiguity. Integrated directly into our submission workflow, it enables automated synchronization between researchers and their scholarly activities, ensuring maximum professional visibility.
The journal requires all primary authors and highly encourages co-authors to link their ORCID iDs to their submission accounts. This seamless integration updates the editorial system automatically. ORCID iDs collected during submission are permanently embedded into the publication’s metadata upon acceptance. Consequently, the ORCID iD is published alongside the final article, allowing the global scientific community to easily navigate to the author’s validated profile and broader research portfolio.
13. Acceptance and Post-Review Workflow
Throughout the production phase, the handling editor will provide regular updates regarding the manuscript's progress. Final page proofs will be transmitted in PDF format to the corresponding author, who must review, approve, and return them promptly within the stipulated deadline.
In alignment with the journal's commitment to transparency, a comprehensive editorial decision report—incorporating the blind peer reviewers' evaluations—will be formally communicated to the author. The evaluation will conclude with one of the following official recommendations:
Acceptance: The manuscript is approved for publication without any further modifications.
Minor Revisions: The manuscript is provisionally accepted, pending minor stylistic or formatting adjustments.
Major Revisions: The manuscript requires substantial structural or methodological revisions before undergoing a secondary round of evaluation.
Final Rejection: The manuscript is declined for publication. In such cases, a detailed report outlining the critical scientific or structural deficiencies is provided to the author.
14. Post-Publication Access and Dissemination
Upon formal publication, authors retain unrestricted access to the final Version of Record on the journal’s website. Under the journal’s open-access mandate, authors are fully permitted and encouraged to share, distribute, and archive the published link or PDF version across institutional repositories and professional networks without any embargo period or chronological barriers.
15. Online First Publication Model
To minimize the time lapse between manuscript acceptance and official dissemination, the journal operates an "Online First" publishing pipeline. This model allows fully peer-reviewed, accepted, and formatted articles to be published online ahead of their formal inclusion in a scheduled quarterly volume or issue. These advance publications represent fully citable works, complete with assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).
16. Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation Policy
To guarantee permanent accessibility, continuous preservation, and unrestricted global access to all published scholarly research, The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies is formally committed to a robust, long-term digital archiving strategy.
The full text of all articles, alongside their respective metadata, is permanently archived and preserved through international web-preservation networks, specifically CLOCKSS and LOCKSS, as well as the Internet Archive. This multi-layered infrastructure ensures that the journal’s entire digital repository remains secure and continuously available to the global scientific community, mitigating any risk of data loss even in the event of hardware server failures or if the journal ceases publication.
Furthermore, to ensure citation stability and facilitate seamless tracking, indexation, and cross-referencing, the journal assigns permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to all published articles through an official agreement with Crossref. The core registered prefix for the journal's digital identifiers is: https://doi.org/10.63939/.
