Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology

Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.

Submission

To submit to the Editorial Office of Dana S. Dunn, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Word Document format (.doc).

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7^th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available.

Submit Manuscript

Dana S. Dunn
Email

If you encounter difficulties with submission, please email Kara Hamilton.

Manuscript types and length

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology accepts the following types of submissions:

Research article

An original, empirical contribution that helps us understand and enhance teaching and learning via evidence-based conclusions.

Teacher-ready research review

A brief review of classic or contemporary research findings which have direct implications for teacher pedagogy and student learning, providing a translational platform from laboratory to classroom.

Teacher-ready theory review

A brief review of relevant classic or contemporary theories that have direct applications for the improvement of teaching and learning.

Cross-fertilization update

A means of fostering connections across subdisciplines within psychology (intradisciplinary) as well as outside of psychology (interdisciplinary) concerning the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Limit submissions to 20–30 manuscript pages, inclusive of all parts of the manuscript.

The journal is pleased to announce three new article types to encourage scholarly inquiry into the improvement of teaching and learning outcomes:

Pedagogical points to ponder

Short essays written by experts in the field, suggesting new directions or topics for additional research in psychology. Pieces need not present new empirical data, and are limited to 2000 words. Sample topics include:

• Translational primes (e.g., a lab based finding that is ripe for classroom testing)
• Replication primes (e.g., results from one setting type to be tested in another)
• Pedagogical primes (e.g., novel ideas for class design/improving teaching in need of empirical testing)

Virtual file drawer

Articles in this section feature potentially innovative ideas lacking empirical testing or significant effects. Perhaps a well-designed, well-executed study did not yield desired outcomes (statistically significant effects); other researchers can learn from these efforts. Sample pieces include innovative interventions ripe for testing or modifications. Papers are limited to 2000 words.

Virtual keynotes

Exceptional keynotes or invited addresses modified for publication including references. Papers are limited to 2000 words.

Registered Reports

The journal also invites submission of Registered Reports. Registered reports require a two-stage review process. 

Stage 1 is the submission of the registration, so-called Stage 1 manuscript. This is a partial manuscript that includes introduction, theoretical framework, rationale for the study, hypotheses, experimental design, and methods (including an analysis plan). The partial manuscript will be reviewed for significance, theoretical framework, methodological approach, and analysis plan. 

If the Stage 1 Registered Report manuscript receives an “in-principal acceptance (IPA)” it means that the study has the potential to be published if is performed exactly as proposed (also including the proposed statistical evaluation) regardless of the outcome of the study. After this stage and before data collection begins the study is pre-registered (e.g., through the Registered Report tools from OSF). 

In Stage 2, the full paper undergoes a second peer-review process, checking if the study protocol was implemented and if the reasons for potential changes were acceptable. Nevertheless, a rejection is still possible, namely if the study’s execution and analysis diverged too much from the proposed study design and/or the manuscript is low quality. The refinement of the discussion and conclusions may still require further revision, but the process will be expedited.

Masked review

This journal has adopted a policy of masked review for all submissions.

The title page should include all authors' names and institutional affiliations and full contact information for the corresponding author. The first page of text should omit this information but should include the title of the manuscript and the date it is submitted.

Every effort should be made to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors' identity.

Manuscript preparation

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

Formatting

Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables.

Display equations

We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.

To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:

• Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object.
• Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.

If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.

Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.

Computer code

Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.

In online supplemental material

We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material.

In the text of the article

If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.

Tables

Use Word's insert table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology

STLP is committed to improving equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in scientific research, in line with the APA Publishing EDI framework and APA’s trio of 2021 resolutions to address systemic racism in psychology.

The journal encourages submissions which extend beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) samples (Henrich, et al., 2010). The journal welcomes submissions which feature Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and other historically marginalized sample populations. The journal particularly welcomes submissions which feature collaborative research models (e.g., community-based participatory research [CBPR]; see Collins, et al., 2018) and study designs that address heterogeneity within diverse samples. Submissions focused exclusively on BIPOC and other historically excluded populations are also welcome.

To promote a more equitable research and publication process, STLP has adopted the following standards for inclusive research reporting.

Author contribution statements using CRediT

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.) stipulates that “authorship encompasses…not only persons who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study.” In the spirit of transparency and openness, JOURNAL has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to describe each author's individual contributions to the work. CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to a manuscript.

Submitting authors will be asked to identify the contributions of all authors at initial submission according to this taxonomy. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the CRediT designations will be published as an Author Contributions Statement in the author note of the final article. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission.

CRediT includes 14 contributor roles, as described below:

• Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
• Formal analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Investigation: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
• Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
• Project administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
• Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
• Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
• Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
• Visualization: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
• Writing—original draft: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing—review and editing: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision—including pre- or post-publication stages.

Authors can claim credit for more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one author. Not all roles will be applicable to a particular scholarly work.

Participant description, sample justification, and informed consent

The method section of each empirical report must contain a detailed description of the study participants, which should include (but is not limited to) the following:

• Age
• Sex
• Gender
• Racial identity
• Ethnicity
• Nativity or immigration history
• Socioeconomic status
• Clinical diagnoses and comorbidities (as appropriate)
• Any other relevant demographics (e.g., disability status; sexual orientation)

In both the abstract and in the discussion section of the manuscript, authors should discuss the diversity of their study samples and the generalizability of their findings.

Authors should also justify their sample demographics in the discussion section. If Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) or all-White samples are used, authors should justify their samples and describe their sample inclusion efforts (see Roberts, et al., 2020 for more information on justifying sample demographics).

The method section also must include a statement describing how informed consent was obtained from the participants (or their parents/guardians), including for secondary use of data if applicable, and indicate that the study was conducted in compliance with an appropriate Internal Review Board.

Reporting year(s) of data collection

Authors must disclose the year(s) of data collection in both the Abstract and in the Method section in order to appropriately contextualize the study.

Academic writing and English language editing services

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.

Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

Submitting supplemental materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles^® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Abstract and keywords

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

References

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the references section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

Journal article

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

Figures

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

Resolution

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI

Line weights

• Adobe Photoshop images
  • Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels
  • Grayscale images: 4 pixels
• Adobe Illustrator Images
  • Stroke weight: 0.5 points

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., “the red (dark gray) bars represent”) as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• $900 for one figure
• An additional $600 for the second figure
• An additional $450 for each subsequent figure

Permissions

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).

On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)

Publication policies

For full details on publication policies, including use of Artificial Intelligence tools, please see APA Publishing Policies.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

See also APA Journals^® Internet Posting Guidelines.

APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).

• Download Full Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 41KB)

In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.). This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the Author Note.

Ethical Principles

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).

In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).

APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.

Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.

• Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)

The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.

Other information

See APA’s Publishing Policies page for more information on publication policies, including information on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors, author name changes after publication, the use of generative artificial intelligence, funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures, duplicate publication, data publication and reuse, and preprints.

Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.

Editor

Dana S. Dunn, PhD
Moravian University, United States

Associate editors

Suzanne C. Baker, PhD
James Madison University, United States

David S. Kreiner, PhD
University of Central Missouri, United States

Consulting editors

Kevin J. Apple, PhD
James Madison University, United States

Kathryn A. Becker-Blease, PhD
Oregon State University, United States

Robert A. Bjork, PhD
University of California, Los Angeles (Emeritus), United States

Guy Boysen, PhD
McKendree University, United States

Karen Brakke, PhD
Spelman College, United States

Christie L. Cathey, PhD
Missouri State University, United States

Stephen Chew, PhD
Samford University, United States

Andrew N. Christopher, PhD
Albion College, United States

Bethany Fleck, PhD
Metropolitan State University of Denver, United States

Regan A. R. Gurung, PhD
Oregon State University, United States

Jane S. Halonen, PhD
University of West Florida, United States

Amy Silvestri Hunter, PhD
Seton Hall University, United States

Mary E. Kite, PhD
Ball State University, United States

Karla A. Lassonde, PhD
Minnesota State University, Mankato, United States

Tony Machin, PhD
University of Southern Queensland, Australia

Lindsay C. Masland, PhD
Appalachian State University, United States

Mark McDaniel, PhD
Washington University in St. Louis, United States

Jamie G. McMinn, PhD
Westminster College, United States

Jasmine A. Mena, PhD
Bucknell University, United States

Kelley Haynes-Mendez, PsyD
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, United States

Karen Z. Naufel, PhD
Georgia Southern University, United States

Samantha J. Newell, PhD
University of Adelaide, Australia

Susan A. Nolan, PhD
Seton Hall University, United States

Henry “Roddy” Roediger, III, PhD
Washington University in St Louis, United States 

Viji Sathy, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Bryan K. Saville, PhD
James Madison University, United States

Gabrielle P.A. Smith, PhD
Texas Woman's University, United States

Claudia J. Stanny, PhD
University of West Florida (Emerita), United States

Jennifer L.W. Thompson, PhD
University of Maryland Global Campus, United States

Jordan D. Troisi, PhD
Colby College, United States

Abstracting and indexing services providing coverage of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology

• OCLC
• PsycInfo

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (recommended)
• Author contribution roles using CRediT (recommended)
• Reflexivity (recommended)
• Positionality statements (recommended)
• Data sharing and data availability statements (recommended)
• Impact statements (recommended)
• Year(s) of data collection (required)
• Participant sample descriptions (required)
• Sample justifications (required)
• Constraints on Generality (COG) statements (recommended)
• Inclusive reference lists (recommended)

More information on this journal’s reporting standards is listed under the submission guidelines tab.

Other EDI offerings

Masked peer review

This journal offers masked peer review (where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are not known to the other). Research has shown that masked peer review can help reduce implicit bias against traditionally female names or early-career scientists with smaller publication records (Budden et al., 2008; Darling, 2015).

Announcements

• Call for editor nominations
• New editor appointed

Editor Spotlight

• Read an interview with Editor Dana S. Dunn, PhD

From APA Journals Article Spotlight^®

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