Guide for author
About the journal
Aims and scope
Journal of Educational and Clinical Psychology publishes substantive reviews of topics germane to educational and clinical psychology. Papers cover diverse issues including: psychopathology, psychotherapy, behavior therapy, cognition and cognitive therapies, behavioral medicine, community mental health, assessment, and child development. Papers should be cutting edge and advance the science and/or practice of educational and clinical psychology.
Reviews on other topics, such as psychophysiology, learning therapy, experimental psychopathology, and social psychology often appear if they have a clear relationship to research or practice in educational and clinical psychology. Integrative literature reviews and summary reports of innovative ongoing clinical research programs are also sometimes published. Reports on individual research studies and theoretical treatises or clinical guides without an empirical base are not appropriate.
Peer review
This journal follows a single anonymized review process. Your submission will initially be assessed by our editors to determine suitability for publication in this journal. If your submission is deemed suitable, it will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent expert assessment of the scientific quality. The decision as to whether your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors.
Our editors are not involved in making decisions about papers which:
- they have written themselves.
- have been written by family members or colleagues.
- relate to products or services in which they have an interest.
Any such submissions will be subject to the journal's usual procedures and peer review will be handled independently of the editor involved and their research group.
Authors may submit a formal appeal request to the editorial decision, provided it meets all the requirements and follows the procedure outlined in our Appeal Policy. Only one appeal per submission will be considered and the appeal decision will be final.
Special issues and article collections
The peer review process for special issues and article collections follows the same process as outlined above for regular submissions, except, a guest editor may send the submissions out to the reviewers and may recommend a decision to the journal editor. The journal editor oversees the peer review process of all special issues and article collections to ensure the high standards of publishing ethics and responsiveness are respected and is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.
Open access
We refer you to our open access information page to learn about open access options for this journal.
Ethics and policies
Ethics in publishing
Authors must follow ethical guidelines stated in our Publishing Ethics Policy.
Submission declaration
When authors submit an article to this journal it is implied that:
- the work described has not been published previously except in the form of a preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or registered report.
- the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
- the article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.
- if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
To verify compliance with our journal publishing policies, we may check your manuscript with our screening tools.
Authorship
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:
- The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.
- Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
- Final approval of the version to be submitted.
Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Changes to authorship
The editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and provide a definitive author list at original submission.
Declaration of competing interests
All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications or registrations, grants or any other funding.
Authors with no competing interests to declare should select the option "I have nothing to declare".
Funding sources
Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication.
If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of generative AI use
Authors must declare the use of generative AI in the manuscript preparation process upon submission of the paper. Authors are responsible and accountable for the contents of their work. If AI Tools have been used, we require a disclosure statement upon submission.
The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as tools used to check grammar, spelling and references. If you have nothing to disclose, you do not need to add a statement.
Preprints
Authors may share preprints in line with our article sharing policy. Sharing preprints, such as on a preprint server, will not count as prior publication.
Use of inclusive language
Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Authors should ensure their work uses inclusive language throughout and contains nothing which might imply one individual is superior to another on the grounds of age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability or health condition.
Writing and formatting
File format
We ask you to provide editable source files for your entire submission (including figures, tables and text graphics). Some guidelines:
- Save files in an editable format, using the extension .doc/.docx for Word files and .tex for LaTeX files. A PDF is not an acceptable source file.
- Format Word files in a single-column layout.
- Remove any strikethrough and underlined text from your manuscript, unless it has scientific significance related to your article.
- Use spell-check and grammar-check functions to avoid errors.
Title page
You are required to include the following details in the title page information:
- Article title. Article titles should be concise and informative. Please avoid abbreviations and formulae, where possible.
- Author names. Provide the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author.
- Affiliations. Add affiliation addresses, referring to where the work was carried out, below the author names.
- Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence for your article at all stages of the refereeing and publication process.
Abstract
You are required to provide a concise and factual abstract which does not exceed 250 words. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of your research, principal results and major conclusions.
Keywords
You are required to provide 1 to 7 keywords for indexing purposes. Keywords should be written in English.
Tables
Tables must be submitted as editable text, not as images. Place tables next to the relevant text or on a separate page(s) at the end of your article. Cite all tables in the manuscript text. Number tables consecutively according to their appearance in the text.
Figures, images and artwork
Figures, images, artwork, diagrams and other graphical media must be supplied as separate files along with the manuscript. Cite all images in the manuscript text. Number images according to the sequence they appear within your article. Please provide captions for all figures, images, and artwork.
Article structure
Divide your manuscript into clearly defined sections covering all essential elements using headings. Include any individuals who provided you with help during your research in the acknowledgements section.
References
Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (2020).
The reference list should be arranged alphabetically and then chronologically. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Submitting your manuscript
Submission checklist
Before completing the submission of your manuscript, we advise you to check:
- One author has been designated as the corresponding author and their full contact details have been provided.
- All files have been uploaded, including keywords, figure captions and tables.
- Spelling and grammar checks have been carried out.
- All references in the article text are cited in the reference list and vice versa.
- Permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted material from other sources.
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines set forth in the most recent publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Manuscripts should ordinarily not exceed 50 pages, including references and tabular material.
After receiving a final decision
Publishing agreement
Authors will be asked to complete a publishing agreement after acceptance. The corresponding author will receive a link to the online agreement by email.
Proof correction
To ensure a fast publication process we will ask you to provide proof corrections within two days. Corresponding authors will be sent an email which includes a link to our online proofing system, allowing annotation and correction of proofs online.
Resources for authors
Language and editing services
We recommend that you write in American or British English but not a combination of both. If you feel the English language in your manuscript requires editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors, you may wish to use professional editing services.
Getting help and support
If you have questions about the editorial process or require technical support for your submission, please visit our support center or contact the editorial office.