Thank you for considering a review for us and for giving your time. The work of our reviewers is the foundation of the journal's quality. The notes below are meant to make the review process easier for you.
Responding to an invitation
We would be grateful for a response to the invitation within 3 days, so that, if needed, we can contact another reviewer without delay. It is best to decline the invitation if the topic is outside your expertise, if you think you know the authors' identity, if you work at the same institution as an author, or if you have co-authored with, supervised or had a close personal relationship with an author in the last three years. Suggesting a suitable alternative reviewer is very helpful to the editor.
Timeline
The deadline for the first review is 20 days; a reminder is sent before the deadline. The deadline for reviewing a revised manuscript is 2 weeks. If you need more time, just let the editor know; we are happy to extend the deadline.
Confidentiality
As the manuscript you review is unpublished, it is confidential. We kindly ask you not to share or cite it, or use it in your own work before publication. For the same reason, please do not upload the manuscript or any part of it to artificial intelligence tools or generate your report with artificial intelligence.
Evaluation criteria
- Clarity of the research question and its contribution; currency and adequacy of the literature review
- Fit of the design with the research question; justification of the sample size (e.g., power analysis)
- Evidence of the validity and reliability of the measures; citation of the adaptation study for adapted scales
- Appropriateness of the statistical analyses; reporting of effect sizes, confidence intervals and exact p values
- In qualitative studies, transparency of data collection and analysis and the trustworthiness strategies used
- Whether the conclusions follow from the data; open discussion of limitations
- Statement of ethics approval, informed consent and institutional or scale permissions
- Compliance with the APA Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) (formatting is done with the template at the revision stage)
- Whether the title and abstract accurately reflect the content (in a revised manuscript, also the extended English abstract)
Writing the report
- Begin by summarizing the manuscript in two or three sentences; this shows how you have read it.
- Listing major and minor issues under separate headings makes the report easier to follow.
- It is most helpful to pair each criticism with a concrete suggestion the authors can act on.
- A general note on language is enough; there is no need to list every typo.
- Keeping criticism focused on the work rather than the person helps the authors read the report as a constructive contribution.
- We kindly ask that suggested references be limited to those genuinely necessary; citation of your own work or of the journal should not be made a condition.
Ethical concerns
If you notice plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, duplicate publication, missing ethics approval or any other ethical problem, please report it to the editor in your confidential comments. To protect the anonymity of the review, we ask you not to investigate the matter yourself or contact the authors; the editor will look into it.
Review form and recommendation
Reviews are submitted through the online Reviewer Evaluation Form in the journal system. The form covers the evaluation criteria, comments for the authors and confidential comments for the editor. You can give your recommendation as one of the following: accept, minor revision, major revision, reject.
Acknowledgement
Reviewers receive a certificate of reviewing on request. At the end of each year, the names and institutions of the reviewers who served that year are published on the journal website.