Psychology in the Schools

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

This journal participates in the Wiley Developmental Science Publishing Network. This exciting collaboration between a number of high quality journals simplifies and speeds up the publication process, helping authors find a home for their research. At the Editors’ judgement, suitable papers not accepted by one journal may be recommended for referral to another journal(s) in the network. Authors decide whether to accept the referral, with the option to transfer their paper with or without revisions. Once the referral is accepted, submission happens automatically, along with any previous reviewer reports, thereby relieving pressure on the peer review process.  While a transfer does not guarantee acceptance, it is more likely to lead to a successful outcome for authors by helping them to find a route to publication quickly and easily.

Sections

1.Submission

2.Aims and Scope

3.Manuscript Categories and Requirements

4.Preparing the Submission

5.Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations

6.Author Licensing

7.Publication Process After Acceptance

8.Post Publication

9.Editorial Office Contact Details

1. SUBMISSION

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium.

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, new submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

Data protection:

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more here. 

Preprint policy:

Wiley believes that journals publishing for communities with established pre-print servers should allow authors to submit manuscripts which have already been made available on a non-commercial preprint server. Allowing submission does not, of course, guarantee that an article will be sent out for review. It simply reflects our belief that journals should not rule out reviewing a paper simply because it has already been available on a non-commercial server. Please see below for the specific policy language.

However, Wiley also knows that the use of preprint servers is not universally accepted and that individual journals and/or societies may approach submission of preprints differently.

This journal will consider for review articles previously available as preprints on non-commercial servers such as ArXiv, bioRxiv, psyArXiv, SocArXiv, engrXiv, etc. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to non-commercial servers at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

2. AIMS AND SCOPE

Psychology in the Schools is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to research, opinion, and practice. The journal, which is published ten times per year, welcomes theoretical and applied manuscripts, focusing on the issues confronting school psychologists, teachers, counsellors, administrators, and other personnel workers in schools and colleges, public and private organizations. Preference will be given to manuscripts that clearly describe implications for the practitioner in the schools.

MANUSCRIPT REQUIREMENTS

Publication Charges

Color figures. Figures submitted in color may be reproduced in colour online free of charge. Please note, however, that it is preferable that line figures (e.g. graphs and charts) are supplied in black and white so that they are legible if printed by a reader in black and white. If an author would prefer to have figures printed in color in hard copies of the journal, the journal charges for publishing figures in color in print. If the author supplies color figures at Early View publication, they will be invited to complete a color charge agreement in RightsLink for Author Services. 

Practitioner Points

Authors will need to provide no more than 3 ‘key points’ that summarize the key messages of their paper to be published with their article. The key points should be written with a practitioner audience in mind.

Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is the author’s responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners. For more information visit Wiley’s Copyright Terms & Conditions FAQS.

4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION

Article Preparation Support

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.   

Free format submission

Psychology in the Schools now offers free format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.

Before you submit, you will need:

• Your manuscript: this can be a single file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers. If your manuscript is difficult to read, the editorial office may send it back to you for revision.
• The title page of the manuscript, including statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies (see information on these policies below in Section 1):
• data availability statement
• funding statement
• conflict of interest disclosure
• ethics approval statement
• patient consent statement
• permission to reproduce material from other sources
• clinical trial registration

If you are invited to revise your manuscript after peer review, the journal will also request the revised manuscript to be formatted according to journal requirements as described below.

Cover Letters

Cover letters are not mandatory; however, they may be supplied at the author’s discretion.

Parts of the Manuscript

The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: title page; main text file; figures.

Title Page

The title page should contain:

1. A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);
2. A short running title of less than 40 characters;
3. The full names of the authors;
4. The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
5. Acknowledgments.

Authorship

Please refer to the journal’s Authorship policy in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details on author listing eligibility.

Acknowledgments

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not appropriate.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors will be asked to provide a conflict of interest statement during the submission process. For details on what to include in this section, see the ‘Conflict of Interest’ section in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section below. Submitting authors should ensure they liaise with all co-authors to confirm agreement with the final statement.

Main Text File

As papers are double-blind peer reviewed, the main text file should not include any information that might identify the authors.

The main text file should be presented in the following order:

1. Title, abstract, and key words;
2. Main text;
3. References;
4. Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
5. Figure legends;
6. Appendices (if relevant).

Title:

The title should be short and informative. The main text of the manuscript should be divided into subsections for clarity. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all written material.

Abstract:

A 100–200 word abstract communicating the essence of the paper is required. The abstract should succinctly and accurately describe the paper so that appropriate referees can be matched to the topic.

Main Text/Copy:

All copy should be typed double-spaced with one-inch margins. Microsoft Word 6.0 is preferred, although manuscripts prepared with any other microcomputer word processor are acceptable. LaTeX is usable but not preferred. ALL MANUSCRIPTS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN RTF OR TXT FILE THAT CAN BE EDITED TO JOURNAL SPECIFICATIONS. If you use software other than Microsoft Word, please provide a plain text file of the manuscript. Most applications support the export of plain text files. Please do not submit text files in Adobe PageMaker, Quark Xpress, or other desktop publishing software. If you prepared your manuscript with desktop publishing software, export the text to a word processing format. Refrain from complex formatting; the publisher will style your manuscript according to journal design specifications. Please make sure your word processing program's "fast save" feature is turned off. Please do not deliver files that contain hidden text. For example, do not use your word processor's automated features to create footnotes or reference lists.

The introduction should include a statement of the problem being addressed, why it is important, and to whom it is important. How is the study related to other work? Is it an extension? Major or minor? Is it a correction or difference of interpretation?

The conclusion should tell the reader clearly what the paper finds or demonstrates. It should be consistent with the objectives set forth in the introduction. It should describe the implications of the results for researchers, traders, policy makers, etc.

Notes:

Notes and other short communications will be considered for publication as well as Comments on recent articles.

Appendix:

Wherever possible, detailed mathematical analysis should be placed in an Appendix.

Footnotes:

Expository footnotes should be cited in the text with a superscript Arabic number and typed double-spaced on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. When typeset, the footnotes will appear at the bottom of the page on which they are cited.

Figures:

Figures and supporting information should be supplied as separate files.

Keywords

psychology; schools; school psychologists; teachers; counselors; administrators  

Main Text

• As papers are double-blind peer reviewed, the main text file should not include any information that might identify the authors.
• The journal uses British/US spelling; however, authors may submit using either option, as spelling of accepted papers is converted during the production process.
• Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

References

References should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). This means in text citations should follow the author-date method whereby the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998). The complete reference list should appear alphabetically by name at the end of the paper.

A sample of the most common entries in reference lists appears below. Please note that a DOI should be provided for all references where available. For more information about APA referencing style, please refer to the APA FAQ. Please note that for journal articles, issue numbers are not included unless each issue in the volume begins with page one.

Journal article:

Example of reference with 2 to 7 authors

Beers, S. R., & De Bellis, M. D. 2002. Neuropsychological function in children with maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder The American Journal of Psychiatry,159, 483–486. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.159.3.483

Ramus, F., Rosen, S., Dakin, S. C., Day, B. L., Castellote, J. M., White, S., & Frith, U. (2003). Theories of developmental dyslexia: Insights from a multiple case study of dyslexic adults. Brain, 126(4), 841–865. doi: 10.1093/brain/awg076

Example of reference with more than 7 authors

Rutter, M., Caspi, A., Fergusson, D., Horwood, L. J., Goodman, R., Maughan, B., … Carroll, J. (2004). Sex differences in developmental reading disability: New findings from 4 epidemiological studies. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291(16), 2007–2012. doi: 10.1001/jama.291.16.2007

Book edition:

Bradley-Johnson, S. (1994). Psychoeducational assessment of students who are visually impaired or blind: Infancy through high school(2nd ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-ed.

References should be typed double-spaced, in alphabetical order starting on a separate page following the manuscript. References should refer only to material listed within the text. Do not abbreviate journal names. Authors should review and verify references before manuscripts are submitted for consideration, because they alone are responsible for accuracy and completeness.

Anthologies and collections must include names of editors and pages on which the reference appears. Books in a series must include series title and number/volume if applicable. Because of the large quantity of conference proceedings available, it is critical to give as much information as possible when citing references from proceedings. Please include the complete title of the meeting, symposium, etc. (do not abbreviate titles), and the city and dates of the meeting. If a proceeding has been published, please provide the editors' names, publisher, city, and year of publication, and pages on which the article appears.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be placed as a list at the end of the paper only, not at the foot of each page. They should be numbered in the list and referred to in the text with consecutive, superscript Arabic numerals. Keep footnotes brief; they should contain only short comments tangential to the main argument of the paper and should not include references.

Tables

Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

Figure legends

Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

Figures

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted.

Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for initial peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.

Figures and artwork

Gray scale art & line art. As with tables (see above), figures should not be embedded in the text. Please cite the figure in the article text and provide a list of figure captions at the end of the manuscript, after the references. Figures must be numbered consecutively with arabic numerals.

Figures are best submitted in tiff or eps (with preview) formats. Each figure should be in a separate file. Please do not submit proprietary graphics formats such as corel draw or adobe illustrator. Authors concerned with best quality printing should ensure that gray scale figures (e.g., screen shots, photos, or charts requiring shades of gray) are high resolution (above 300 dpi). Figures pasted directly from the web are low resolution (72 dpi). Bitmapped line art (made only of black & white lines—often simple charts or graphs) should be submitted at higher resolutions yielding 600-1200 dpi.

Authors are cautioned to provide lettering of graphs and figure labels that is large, clear, and open so that letters and numbers do not become illegible when reduced. Likewise, authors are cautioned that very thin lines and other fine details in figures may not successfully reproduce. Original figures should be created with these precautions in mind.

Data Citation

In recognition of the significance of data as an output of research effort, Wiley has endorsed the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles and is implementing a mandatory data citation policy. Wiley journals require data to be cited in the same way as article, book, and web citations and authors are required to include data citations as part of their reference list.

Data citation is appropriate for data held within institutional, subject focused, or more general data repositories. It is not intended to take the place of community standards such as in-line citation of GenBank accession codes.

When citing or making claims based on data, authors must refer to the data at the relevant place in the manuscript text and in addition provide a formal citation in the reference list. We recommend the format proposed by the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles: 

[dataset] Authors; Year; Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g. DOI)

5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Peer Review and Acceptance

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to journal readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are double-blind peer reviewed. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Refer and Transfer Program

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

Conflict of Interest

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Funding

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

Funder arrangements (e.g. Wellcome Trust, RCUK, Austrian Science Fund and others)

There are separate arrangements with certain funding agencies governing reuse of this version as set forth here.

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version.

6. AUTHOR LICENSING

If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under Open Access, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used; to check this please click here.)

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish using Open Access will be charged a fee. A list of Article Publication Charges for Wiley journals is available here.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Accepted Article Received in Production

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Accepted Articles

The journal offers Wiley’s Accepted Articles service for all manuscripts. This service ensures that accepted ‘in press’ manuscripts are published online shortly after acceptance, prior to copy-editing or typesetting. Accepted Articles are published online a few days after final acceptance, appear in PDF format only, and are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows them to be cited and tracked. After publication of the final version article (the article of record), the DOI remains valid and can still be used to cite and access the article.

Proofs

Once the paper is typeset, the author will receive an email notification with full instructions on how to provide proof corrections.

Please note that the author is responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during the editorial process – authors should check proofs carefully. Note that proofs should be returned within 48 hours from receipt of first proof.

Accepted Articles

This journal offers rapid publication via Wiley's Accepted Articles Service.   Accepted Articles are published on Wiley Online Library within 5 days of receipt, without waiting for a copyright agreement (they are protected under a general copyright statement).

Early View

The journal offers rapid publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View (Online Version of Record) articles are published on Wiley Online Library before inclusion in an issue. Note there may be a delay after corrections are received before the article appears online, as Editors also need to review proofs. Before we can publish an article, we require a signed license (authors should login or register with Wiley Author Services.   Once the article is published on Early View, no further changes to the article are possible. The Early View article is fully citable and carries an online publication date and DOI for citations.

8. POST PUBLICATION

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Access and Sharing

When the article is published online: 

• The author receives an email alert (if requested).
• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.
• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).
• For non-open access articles, the corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receivea publication alert and free online access to the article.

Promoting the Article

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

Cover Image Submissions  

This journal accepts artwork submissions for Cover Images. This is an optional service you can use to help increase article exposure and showcase your research. For more information, including artwork guidelines, pricing, and submission details, please visit the Journal Cover Image page.  

Measuring the Impact of an Article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

Archiving Services

Portico and CLOCKSS are digital archiving/preservation services we use to ensure that Wiley content will be accessible to customers in the event of a catastrophic event such as Wiley going out of business or the platform not being accessible for a significant period of time.  Member libraries participating in these services will be able to access content after such an event. Wiley has licenses with both Portico and CLOCKSS, and all journal content gets delivered to both services as it is published on Wiley Online Library.  Depending on their integration mechanisms, and volume loads, there is always a delay between content being delivered and showing as “preserved” in these products.