Authorship is reserved for people who made a substantial intellectual contribution. Routine or administrative help does not qualify. To be listed, a person must meet all four conditions.

The corresponding author confirms that every co-author meets these criteria and that nobody has been added inappropriately. Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission are discouraged and need a written justification plus the written consent of everyone affected. After acceptance, changes require editorial approval; after publication, they are handled through a formal correction notice.

State what each person did, using the CRediT taxonomy: conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing (original draft), writing (review and editing), visualization, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. The statement is published with the article, and at least one author acts as guarantor for the integrity of the work as a whole.

People who helped — through supervision, funding, data collection, technical or writing assistance, or discussion that shaped the manuscript — but do not meet the authorship criteria should be named, with their affiliation, in an Acknowledgments section. Authors must tell them and obtain their consent first, sharing the article so the description of their role is accurate. Schools, teacher working groups, and education offices that supported the study may be credited collectively with a brief note on what they did. Because an acknowledgment can read as endorsement, written permission is required.

List the institutions where the research was carried out, approved, or supported, with department, city, and country. For non-research articles, give your current institution. If you move before publication, keep the institution where the work was done as the main affiliation and mention the new one in the acknowledgments. Changing institution is never on its own a reason to remove an author who meets the criteria.

Research with human participants must follow the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and be approved by an institutional ethics committee where one is available. State in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained, and name the approving body together with its approval number. Participants must be told what the study involves, what will be done with their data, and that they may withdraw at any time without consequence.

Names, initials, student or staff numbers, class registers, and any other identifying detail must not appear unless they are essential to the science and the person has given written consent to publication. The same applies to photographs, video, and audio recordings of classrooms: obtain written consent from the individual, from a parent or guardian for a minor, or from next of kin where the person has died. Consent must cover publication online under CC BY-SA 4.0 and acknowledge that the material will be publicly available. Obscure faces and other identifying features unless consent explicitly covers showing them. Editors may ask to see the signed forms, which are treated as confidential; authors keep the originals and archive them as local rules require. Where anonymity is doubtful, obtain consent.

Images must represent the original data faithfully — screenshots of learning platforms, photographs of instruments and student work, charts generated from data. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or colour are acceptable only if minor and applied evenly across the whole image; anything that changes meaning is not. Describe how images were captured and name the software used for any edit. Composite figures must be marked as composites, and original unedited files must be available on request. Material taken from another source — text, figures, tables, data, audio, video, screenshots — needs written permission from the rights holder and a citation, even where an open licence applies. Short extracts quoted for criticism or review are the usual exception. Cultural sensitivities must be respected where images involve religious practice, custom, or communities with their own approval processes.

A competing interest is anything outside the research that could reasonably be seen as affecting its objectivity or its evaluation. Declare it whether or not it actually influenced the work. A declared interest rarely prevents review or publication; an undisclosed one may lead to rejection, re-evaluation, a correction notice, or retraction. If you are unsure, declare it or ask the editorial office.

Name every source of funding and financial support, with grant numbers, and say what part the funder played in design, data collection, analysis, or preparation of the manuscript. If the funder played no part, say so. Funding information must match what the funding body requires.

This policy covers the writing process, not the use of AI as a research instrument, which belongs in the methods section. AI tools may be used to improve readability and language, under human oversight and with the output checked and edited. They may not substitute for core authoring work: generating scientific or pedagogical insight, drawing conclusions, or producing recommendations. AI cannot be listed as an author, because authorship carries responsibilities only a person can hold. Any use must be disclosed in a statement published with the article, naming the tool and what it was used for. AI output can sound authoritative and still be wrong, incomplete, or biased; authors remain fully accountable for originality and accuracy. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts to AI services, since that would breach confidentiality.

Describe the rationale, protocol, methodology, and analysis fully enough that another researcher could verify or repeat the study. Development research should report validity, practicality, and effectiveness. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies should report effect sizes alongside significance tests. Systematic reviews should follow PRISMA; bibliometric studies should disclose the database, search strategy, and timeframe.

Every research article carries a short Data Availability Statement, placed before the reference list. The journal does not require that data be made public — much education research involves pupils, teachers, and named schools, and consent or ethical approval may rule out open sharing. What the journal does require is that readers be told plainly where the data stand.

One of the three statements below will fit most studies.

Where a study rests on no data in the ordinary sense — a conceptual or theoretical article, for instance — state that no new data were created or analysed.

Before you share anything, anonymise it. Remove names, student and staff numbers, class registers, and school identifiers, and check that individuals cannot be re-identified by combining variables such as school, class, and date of birth. Sharing is permitted only where the consent obtained from participants covers it.

Authors are encouraged to publish the instruments alongside the article — questionnaires, rubrics, teaching modules, interview protocols — since these are what other researchers most often need in order to replicate a study, and they rarely carry privacy risk. Raw data must be retained for at least five years after publication. Editors may ask to see it during review or after publication; refusing a reasonable request can lead to rejection or, for a published article, to retraction.

The journal acts on every allegation of misconduct under COPE guidance, whatever stage the work has reached. Sanctions range from rejection to retraction and, in serious cases, notification of the author's institution.

Cite literature that is relevant, current, and reliable, preferably peer-reviewed, to support the claims you make. Avoid excessive self-citation. In reviews and opinion pieces especially, references should reflect the field in a balanced way rather than favouring one group, institution, or journal. If you are unsure whether a citation is appropriate, ask the editorial office before submitting.

Every manuscript is reviewed double-blind: authors and reviewers are not told each other's identity at any stage. The editorial team screens first for fit with the journal's aims and scope in educational theory, research, and development, for compliance with the author guidelines, and for similarity. Manuscripts that pass screening go to at least two independent reviewers with expertise in the relevant area.

The final decision rests with the Editorial Board and is based on the reviewers' recommendations, methodological soundness, originality, and the contribution the work makes to education research and practice. Reviewers are asked to declare any competing interest and to decline the assignment where one exists.

Where a manuscript raises ethical concerns — research involving children or other vulnerable participants, sensitive cultural or religious material, or missing ethical clearance — the editors may seek additional expert advice, request documentation, or decline to proceed with review.

Submitted manuscripts are confidential. They are seen only by the people handling them: editors, the corresponding author, and assigned or prospective reviewers. Where misconduct is suspected, a manuscript may be disclosed to those investigating it, such as an ethics committee or the author's institution, following the relevant COPE flowchart.

A manuscript is returned without review when any of the following applies.

Changes to a published article are made only after consideration by the editors, in line with COPE guidance, and are always recorded in a permanent public notice linked to and from the original article.