Review Process and Criteria

The journal follows Double-Blind Peer Review Guidelines, both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.

Anonymised articles suitable for review are forwarded by the editorial office to two reviewers, ensuring that the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and vice versa (double-blind peer review).

Pre-Submission

The Guidelines for Authors can be found here.

Submission

The submission criteria are as follows:

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it under simultaneous consideration by another journal.
2. The instructions in the Guidelines for Authors have been followed.
3. Citations and references are in APA style (American Psychological Association referencing style)
4. The authors´names have been deleted from the text and do not appear in the file properties, to ensure a blind peer-review.
5. The submission file is in Microsoft Word format.

Integrity and orginality check

Each submitted article undergoes first an academic integrity and orginality check.

The extend to which a submission matches already published sources is indicated via percentages. The percentage is calculated by Turnitin. The decision after the integrity check is based on the following specific limits:

1. 20% - 30% match: manuscript will be sent back to the author to revise the manuscript.
2. > 30% match: manuscript will be rejected.

Initial screening

Each submitted article undergoes after the integrity check an initial screening by the editorial office/editorial board. Screening criteria are as follows:

1. Article is within the scope of the journal
2. Author has ensured the integrity of a blind review
3. Theory, methods and results are ready for the blind review
4. The journal guidelines were followed (e.g. compliance with APA Style, 7th Edition)
5. The article is suitable to address an international audience (e.g. grammar, style/clarity)

Articles that do not meet these requirements are rejected after screening.

Double-blind peer review

Anonymised articles suitable for review are forwarded by the editorial office to at least two reviewers, ensuring that the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and vice versa (double-blind peer review).

Review criteria are as follows:

1. Ethics: The author has met research and publication ethics requirements.
2. Relevance: The article is within the scope of the journal.
3. Framework: The theoretical/conceptual/empirical framework is clearly presented and explained.
4. Problem statement: The problem statement is clearly presented and explained.
5. Research questions: The research questions are clearly presented and explained.
6. Research methods: The research methods are appropriate and clearly presented.
7. Results/findings/conclusions: The results/findings/conclusions are adequately and clearly presented and discussed.

The reviewers recommend with an overall rating:

1. Accept
2. Minor revisions needed (neither accept nor reject)
3. Major revisions needed (neither accept nor reject)
4. Reject

Final Decision

A third reviewer will be involved if the recommendations of the frist two reviews are contradictory. The final decision is made by the editor in chief.