Author Guidelines

The journal at a glance

Is your manuscript right for JPtpp?

We publish work that tells an educator, researcher, or policymaker outside your own institution something they can use. Before you submit, be able to answer each of these in one sentence.

1. The gapWhat was not known before this study?
2. The findingWhat is now known — with numbers, or the core qualitative pattern?
3. The contributionWho should change what, because of it?

If any of the three is hard to answer, the manuscript is not ready. No amount of formatting will fix that.

Routinely desk-rejected

• Local descriptive surveys with no theoretical framing and no claim beyond the sampled class or school (“students’ motivation was in the high category”).
• Reports that a treatment “worked”, with no effect size, no comparison condition, and no mechanism.
• Development (R&D) studies that stop at validator scores and never test the product with learners.
• Correlational studies on one small convenience sample presented as if they establish cause.
• Literature reviews with no stated search strategy, database list, inclusion criteria, or screening flow.
• Manuscripts outside education, or on education so broadly that no research question is identifiable.
• Human-participant research — especially involving children — with no ethics statement.
• Work already published, under review elsewhere, or split from a larger study so that content is duplicated (salami publication).
• Serious language problems, structural deficiencies, or non-compliance with these guidelines.

Article types and limits

Word counts exclude the abstract, tables, and references. They are limits, not targets: a 4,200-word article that answers its question is stronger than a 7,000-word one that repeats itself.

What to submit

Upload three separate files. Submissions with fewer are returned unread.

1. Title Page — TitlePage_Surname.docx. Part A of the template: title, all authors, ORCID iDs, affiliations, corresponding-author details, CRediT contribution statement, and all declarations. Seen by editors only, never by reviewers.
2. Anonymised Manuscript — Manuscript_ShortTitle.docx. Part B of the template. No author names, affiliations, e-mails, institution names, acknowledgements, or funder names.
3. Cover Letter — CoverLetter_Surname.docx. Six to ten sentences: what you studied, the single most important finding, why it fits JPtpp, a statement that the work is original and not under review elsewhere, and confirmation that all authors approve the submission. You may name up to two reviewers you would prefer we avoid, with a reason.

Optional but recommended: figures as separate high-resolution files (Figure1.png), the similarity report, instruments and datasets in a repository, and supplementary appendices.

Anonymising properly

Deleting the names from page 1 is not enough. Before uploading Part B:

• Rewrite self-referential citations: “in our previous study (Sari, 2021)” → “in a previous study (Sari, 2021)”.
• Mask identifying settings: “SMAN 3 Malang” → “a public senior secondary school in a mid-sized Indonesian city”; reinstate the real name after acceptance.
• Move all acknowledgements, grant numbers, and ethics approval numbers to the Title Page.
• Clear the document properties: File → Info → Check for Issues → Inspect Document → Document Properties and Personal Information → Remove All.

Formatting

The template already applies all of it. Do not change the page setup.

Headings are never numbered in JPtpp. Use no more than three heading levels.

Writing each section

This is the part most authors skip and most reviewers complain about. Use it as a checklist while you draft.

Title, abstract, keywords

• Title (15 words or fewer): name the construct(s), the population, and the design or contribution. Avoid “A Study of…”, “An Analysis of…”, question marks, and abbreviations.
• Abstract (200–250 words, one paragraph, no citations, no abbreviations): problem and why it matters (1–2 sentences) → aim or research question (1) → design, participants with n, level, setting, country, instruments, analysis (2–3) → main findings with the actual numbers (3–4) → what they mean (1–2). An abstract without numbers reads as an abstract without findings.
• Keywords (3–6, semicolon-separated, alphabetical): choose terms not already in the title, so the article is discoverable through more search paths.

Introduction — 600–1,200 words, no sub-headings

Four moves, in order:

1. Territory. The real educational problem, anchored in data (assessment results, policy documents, classroom evidence) — not in a dictionary definition.
2. What is known. A thematic synthesis grouped by what studies found, not one paragraph per study: the recent five years plus the seminal works that define your constructs.
3. The gap. Explicit and specific: “However, no study has yet examined X in Y context, which leaves Z unanswered.” “Few studies exist” is not a gap; an unanswered question or an unresolved contradiction in the evidence is.
4. This study. The aim, the numbered research questions or hypotheses, and the contribution, in two or three sentences. No method, no results.

Method — 700–1,500 words

The test is replicability: another researcher must be able to repeat your study from this section alone. Use these sub-headings and delete what does not apply.

• Research design — the design in standard terminology, why it fits the question, and the reporting standard you followed (CONSORT for trials, PRISMA 2020 for reviews, COREQ or SRQR for qualitative work).
• Participants and setting — population, sampling technique and rationale, sample size with justification (a priori power analysis for quantitative work; saturation for qualitative), demographics, inclusion and exclusion criteria, attrition, and enough context for a reader to judge transferability.
• Instruments — for each: source and permission, number and type of items, response scale, scoring, and validity and reliability evidence computed on your own data (Cronbach’s alpha or composite reliability; expert-judgement indices such as Aiken’s V or CVI with the number of experts; factor analysis where relevant). Full instruments go in an appendix or repository.
• Procedure — chronological: recruitment, consent, the intervention (duration, frequency, who delivered it, materials, fidelity checks), what the comparison group received, and when measurements were taken.
• Data analysis — every analysis matched to a research question. Quantitative: software and version, how assumptions were tested and what you did when they were violated, treatment of missing data, alpha level, and which effect sizes and confidence intervals you report. Qualitative: analytic approach, coding process, who coded, inter-coder agreement, trustworthiness strategies. Mixed methods: how and at what point the strands were integrated.

Results — 800–2,000 words

Findings only: no interpretation, no citations, no repetition of the method. Follow the order of the research questions; open each subsection by answering its question in one plain sentence, then give the evidence. Never present the same number twice, once in a table and again in the text — the text points out the pattern the table shows.

Statistics (APA 7)

Report exact p to three decimals (p = .032; use p < .001 only below that), always with an effect size and a 95% confidence interval:

Italicise statistical symbols (M, SD, t, F, p, r, n); drop the leading zero for values that cannot exceed 1 (p = .04, r = .68) but keep it elsewhere (M = 0.78). A p value without an effect size will be sent back.

Qualitative findings

Organise by theme, not by participant. Name each theme so the name carries meaning, define it, support it with one or two short verbatim quotations attributed to anonymised participants (Teacher 4, School B), and state how many participants contributed to it.

Discussion — 1,000–2,000 words

The section that decides acceptance. The most common reason for rejection after review is a discussion that restates the results. Four moves:

1. Answer the research question in one or two sentences, without numbers.
2. Explain why it happened, through a named theory and mechanism — not by rephrasing the finding.
3. Situate the finding against specific prior studies: who agrees, who disagrees, and why the difference plausibly arose (population, instrument, duration, culture, context). Contradicting earlier work is publishable; leaving the contradiction unexamined is not.
4. So what — implications stated separately for theory, for classroom practice (be concrete: what should a teacher do differently on Monday?), and for policy where relevant.

Conclusion — 150–300 words

One or two paragraphs. No sub-headings, no citations, no new data, no numbered list of “suggestions”. Answer the research questions, state the contribution, and end with the single most important implication.

Limitations and future research — 100–200 words

Name the limitations that genuinely constrain the interpretation of your findings and say what each one means for the reader’s confidence in your conclusions. Then propose studies that follow directly from those limitations. “The sample was small” is not a limitation until you say what the small sample prevents you from claiming.

References

• Style: APA 7th edition, alphabetical, hanging indent 1.27 cm. Use Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote — then check the output by hand. Reference-manager errors are our single most frequent correction request.
• Minimum number: by article type (see section 3).
• Composition: at least 80% peer-reviewed journal articles; at least 60% published within the last five years. Foundational and theoretical works of any age are expected and welcome — cite Vygotsky, Bandura, or Bloom where they belong, and do not distort your framework to satisfy a recency rule.
• DOIs: compulsory for every source that has one, written as a full link (https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx).
• No quota by nationality or index. We do not require any proportion of international or national journals. Relevance and quality decide, in that order.
• Self-citation: below 10% of the list. Citing your own work to support a specific point is legitimate; padding is not, and reviewers notice. Reciprocal citation arrangements are citation manipulation and are treated as misconduct.
• Not acceptable as primary support: predatory or unindexed outlets, undergraduate theses, blogs, unattributed web content, and AI-generated reference lists. Every reference must be one you have read and can produce on request.
• Matching: every in-text citation appears in the list and every entry in the list is cited in the text. We check this mechanically.

Worked reference examples for fourteen source types are provided in the article template.

Required declarations

All of these go on the Title Page. None may be left blank — write the negative statement where there is nothing to declare. Model sentences are in the template.

• Authorship. Authorship requires all four ICMJE criteria: substantial contribution to conception, design, data acquisition or analysis; drafting or critically revising the work; approval of the version submitted; and accountability for it. Anyone who does not meet all four is acknowledged, not listed. Supervisors, heads of department, and data collectors are not automatically authors. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship are research misconduct.
• CRediT contribution statement. At least one role per author; one author acts as guarantor for the integrity of the whole work.
• Changes to authorship after submission require a signed request from the corresponding author stating the reason, plus written agreement from every author, including the one added or removed. Authorship cannot be changed after acceptance; a post-publication change requires a formal correction notice.
• Affiliations. List every institution where the work was carried out, approved, or supported. If you move before publication, keep the institution where the work was done as the main affiliation. A change of affiliation does not remove authorship.
• Funding — funder name, grant number, and the funder’s role at each stage, or an explicit statement of no funding.
• Conflict of interest — financial and non-financial, including institutional roles, intellectual property, personal relationships, and academic competition.
• Ethics approval and informed consent — committee name, institution, date, and approval number, plus how consent was obtained. For participants under 18, both written parental or guardian consent and the child’s own assent are required. Research in schools also needs documented institutional permission. Identifiable images or details require written Consent to Publish under CC BY-SA 4.0. Manuscripts involving human participants without an ethics statement are desk-rejected; we may ask to see the approval letter.
• Data availability — a repository link with a DOI, or a specific reason why the data cannot be shared. “Data are available on request” alone is not sufficient; state the restriction.
• Generative AI. Declare any use, with the tool, version, and purpose. AI tools may support language editing, translation, and code checking. They may not generate data, results, references, images, or the substance of the text, and they cannot be authors or reviewers. Authors are fully responsible for everything submitted, including anything an AI tool produced. Undeclared use detected at screening leads to rejection; discovered after publication, to a correction or retraction.
• Prior dissemination — conference presentation, thesis origin, or preprint DOI. Preprints are permitted and are not treated as prior publication; declare them, and link the preprint to the final article DOI after publication.
• Acknowledgments — name and affiliation of contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria, with their consent obtained beforehand.

Ethics and research integrity

JPtpp follows COPE guidance, the ICMJE recommendations, and the Declaration of Helsinki. See also our Publication Ethics Statement and full Policies.

• Similarity: below 20% overall, no single source above 3%, excluding the reference list and correctly attributed quotations. High similarity concentrated in the Method may be acceptable and will be assessed by an editor; high similarity in the Introduction or Discussion will not.
• Plagiarism — including of your own previously published text — fabrication, falsification, and image manipulation lead to rejection and, where warranted, notification of the authors’ institution. Retain your raw data and original, unedited, uncropped images: failure to supply them on request can mean rejection or retraction.
• Duplicate submission to another journal at the same time ends consideration immediately. This also applies to publication in another language; a translated secondary publication requires permission from the original publisher, disclosure to the editor, and citation of the original.
• Salami publication: if your manuscript draws on a dataset you have published from before, say so in the cover letter and explain what is new here.
• Third-party material requires written permission from the copyright holder, and the original source must be cited even where reuse is permitted under an open licence.
• Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions are issued according to COPE flowcharts; the published version of record is never quietly altered.
• Appeals. You may appeal a rejection once, within 14 days, by e-mailing the Editorial Office with a point-by-point response to the reasons for rejection and a statement of what the reviewers misread. Appeals are decided by an editor who was not involved in the original decision. Disagreement with a reviewer’s judgement is not, by itself, grounds for a successful appeal.
• Complaints about the process, an editor, or a reviewer should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected] and are acknowledged within five working days.

Peer review, and how to survive it

Model: double-anonymised. Reviewers do not know who you are; you do not know who they are.

We report against these targets, and you may ask the Editorial Office for a status update once a stage has elapsed.

Responding to reviewers

Submit a separate response letter as a three-column table: Reviewer comment · What we changed · Where (page and line). Then:

• Respond to every comment, including the ones you disagree with.
• Where you disagree, say so politely and give a reason or evidence. Reviewers respect a defended position; they do not respect a comment silently ignored.
• Quote the revised text in the response letter so the editor can see the change without hunting for it.
• Mark changes in the manuscript (highlight or tracked changes) and also upload a clean copy.
• “Done” is not a response. “Revised as suggested; see p. 7, lines 210–218, where we now report Cohen’s d and the 95% CI” is.

Production, copyright, and charges

• Proofs are sent once and must be returned within 72 hours. At proof stage you may correct typesetting errors only — not add data, references, or authors.
• Copyright stays with the authors. By publishing with JPtpp you grant the journal the right of first publication under CC BY-SA 4.0: anyone may share and adapt your article with attribution, and derivatives must carry the same licence.
• Open access is immediate and unrestricted, in line with the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Self-archiving of the published version in an institutional repository or on your own page is permitted and encouraged, with a link to the article on the journal site.
• Article Processing Charge: IDR 1,000,000, invoiced only after acceptance. Submission and review are free. Payment never influences an editorial decision.
• Waivers and discounts. Authors from low- and middle-income countries, or those lacking funding support, may apply for a partial or full waiver. Requests must be made at the time of submission, with a brief statement of the basis (for example, limited research funding or institutional affiliation). Waiver decisions are communicated separately from the editorial decision and do not influence review.
• Withdrawal after acceptance requires the approval of the Editor-in-Chief and may be subject to a fee covering administrative and editorial work already performed.

Final checklist

Tick all of it. Every unticked box is a week of delay.

• Within scope; original; not published or under review elsewhere
• Three files uploaded: Title Page, anonymised Manuscript, Cover Letter
• Part B fully anonymised, including self-citations, institution names, and document properties
• Template followed exactly: A4, 2.5 cm margins, Times New Roman 11 pt, single spacing, line and page numbers
• Word count, abstract length, and keyword count within the limits for the article type
• Structure: Introduction – Method – Results – Discussion – Conclusion – Limitations – References, headings unnumbered
• Every research question answered in the Results and interpreted in the Discussion
• All statistics with exact p, effect sizes, and confidence intervals; tables editable and three-line; figures at least 300 dpi and greyscale-legible
• References: minimum met, 80% or more journal articles, 60% or more from the last five years, DOIs included, APA 7, in-text and list matched
• All declarations complete on the Title Page, including generative-AI use
• Ethics approval obtained before data collection; consent, plus parental consent and child assent for minors, documented
• Similarity below 20% overall, no source above 3%; report attached
• English professionally edited or checked by a proficient speaker
• All co-authors have approved this version, the authorship order, and the CRediT statement