Criteria

The journal follows the authorship criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), adapted for education and the social sciences. Each author meets all four criteria: (1) a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data, (2) drafting the manuscript or revising the manuscript critically for important content, (3) approval of the final version, and (4) agreement to be accountable for all parts of the work.

Contributions

The title page describes each author's role using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) categories, such as conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing of the original draft, and supervision.

Acknowledgments

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria, such as those who provided funding, general supervision, administrative support, data collection assistance, translation, or language editing, appear in the Acknowledgments section with their consent.

Student research

For articles derived from undergraduate or graduate theses, the student normally appears as first author. Advisers, panel members, and statisticians appear as co-authors only when they meet all four criteria.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author handles all communication with the journal, confirms all co-authors approved the submission and each revision, completes the declarations, and signs the Author Agreement. The corresponding author provides an ORCID iD. The journal encourages all authors to provide ORCID iDs.

Prohibited practices

The journal does not accept ghost authorship, guest or gift authorship, or the listing of administrators or officials by virtue of position alone.

Changes to authorship

Any change to the author list, author order, or corresponding author before acceptance requires a written request from the corresponding author stating the reason, with signed consent from all authors, including anyone added or removed. Changes after acceptance happen only in exceptional cases with the approval of the Editor-in-Chief. The journal refers authorship disputes to the authors' institutions, following COPE guidance.

AI tools

Generative AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship and do not appear as authors.