International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology

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Editor in Chief
Dr. Munawar Hussain, Senior Vice President, Knowledge Words Publications
ISSN Online
2312-1882
1 Issue per year

Starting Year
2014

Copyright Holder
Knowledge Words Publications

International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology (IJARP), (ISSN: 2312-1882) is an internationally refereed journal published annually by Knowledge Words Publications.

Contributions are encouraged from all fields of psychology, especially those that address new developments and pursue innovative approaches. We particularly welcome the articles that either (a) incorporate perspectives from different areas within psychology or from disciplines of relevance for psychology, (b) study the role of physical, social and cultural contexts in psychological processes and outcomes, or (c) integrate psychological thinking from different regions in the world.

Manuscript Submission Overview

Aims and Scope

International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology (IJARP), (ISSN: 2312-1882) is an internationally refereed journal published annually in December by Knowledge Words Publications. 

The International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology (IJARP) advances psychological research of interest and relevance for the human condition around the world and serves as the outlet for internationally relevant basic and applied research in scientific psychology. Contributions are encouraged from all fields of psychology, especially those that address new developments and pursue innovative approaches. We particularly welcome the articles that either (a) incorporates perspectives from different areas within psychology or from disciplines of relevance for psychology, (b) study the role of physical, social, and cultural contexts in psychological processes and outcomes, or (c) integrate psychological thinking from different regions in the world.

In addition, we focus on personality psychology, clinical psychology, health psychology, abnormal psychology, social psychology, the psychology of law, the psychology of religion, sports psychology, the psychology of youth and gender, the psychology of aging, positive psychology, and so on….

IJARP publishes Brief Research Reports, Original Research Articles, Review Papers, Book Reviews, and Special Issues with a thematic focus. The submissions are open throughout the year and the issue is closed in December of every year. 

For information on specific requirements, please see the Submission Guidelines.

Peer Review Policy
All journals published by Knowledge Words Publications (KWP) follow the peer review system designed for each article published.
  • Manuscript topics are normally approved by senior editors followed by formal peer review conducted in collaboration with editorial board members and independent referees appointed by the editorial team of each journal.
  • KWP encourages its editorial teams to use the electronic submission and peer-review system for its journals to facilitate them during the peer review process.

Open Access Policy

All content of International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Journal Contact

Dr. Muhammad Saleem
Associate Professor, Department of Applied Psychology, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
Email: ijarp@kwpublications.com 

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Creative Commons License
Work in this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All the journals published by KWP are peer-review journals having editorial board of qualified members. Double-blind assessment with independent reviewers, followed by final decision by the Editor-in-Chief is implemented in most of the cases. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and special issue topics, and new Editorial Board members. The reviewers' identities remain ananymous to the authors. Journal attempts to convey the reviewer’s comments about the manuscripts to the authors. Accepted pending revision manuscripts will be re-reviewed by the Editorial Board.

Following checks are initially carried out by the managing editor.

  • For each manuscript, the plagarism check report is generated using industry standard iThenticate software. 
  • The suitability of research according to journal scope.

After initial checks, managing editor initiates the review process. The process is double-blind for most journals, meaning that the author and reviewers, both do not know the identity each other. 

Atleast two reviewers from same academic field review the manuscript. In few cases, more than two reviewers are engaged for rigourous evaluation of manuscript. Reviewers are given 7-10 days to write their review. Suggestions from reviewers are made available to the authors, where suggested correction are compulsory to be implemented by respective authors. The revised version (by the authors) is then re-reviwed by the managing editor or by the same reviewers if needed. Based on review results and revisions, editors are authorized to accept or reject the manuscript. 

The decision of Editor-in-Chief (to accept or reject the manuscript) is based upon various parameters.

  • The novelty and overall scientific quality of the research.
  • The justified theoretical and contextual contribution of the study in respective field.
  • The suitability of reviewers comments.
  • Author response to the comments and appropriate revisions/corrections.

The editor can select from: accept, reject, ask author for revision, ask for an additional reviewer. Reviewers are obliged to justify their decision with proper comments. Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to agree or disagree with the review comments. In case of disagrement, the manuscript is sent to another reviewer (other two assigned reviewers) for further evaluation. KWP staff or editorial board members (including Editors-in-Chief) are not involved in the processing their own academic work. Their submissions are assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions are made by other editorial board members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author.

Revisions are compulsory for authors which are suggested by the reviwers. The revised version (by the authors) is then re-reviwed by the managing editor or by the same reviewers if needed. Based on review results and revisions, editors are authorized to accept or reject the manuscript. Articles may or may not be sent to reviewers after author revision, dependent on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version and the wishes of the Academic editor. 

E-mail attachment as electronic proof will be sent to the corresponding author as a PDF file. The final version of the manuscripts will be considered the page proofs. No changes will be made in the manuscript at the proof stage except clerical or typographical errors. Authors will have electronic access to the full text (PDF) of the article and can download the PDF file from which they can print unlimited copies of their articles. 

Knowledge Words Publications publishes peer-reviewed journals on various scientific disciplines. This statement explains the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article for its journals, i.e.: the author, the Editor in Chief, the peer-reviewer, and the publisher. This statement is based on internationally accepted Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Decision on the Publication of Articles
The Editor in Chief of each KWP Journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The Editor in Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and subjected to such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Editor in Chief may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play
Manuscripts shall be evaluated solely on their intellectual merit without regard to authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality
The Editor in Chief/editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used by anyone who has a view of the manuscript (while handling it) in his or her own research without the express written consent of the author.

Contribution of Peer Review
Peer review assists the Editor in Chief and the editorial board in making editorial decisions while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or unable to provide a prompt review should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with, others except as authorized by the Editor in Chief.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor in Chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Confidentiality
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Conflict of Interest
Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Reporting standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
Authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others this must be appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple Publication
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of Sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Corresponding Author
The corresponding author is the author responsible for communicating with the journal for publication. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Acknowledgment of Funding Sources
Sources of funding for the research reported in the article should be duly acknowledged at the end of the article.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Article Processing Charges (APC): 65 USD

All journals published by KWP, are open access under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license. The open-access policy offers free and easy access of scholarly work to the global audience. For this purpose, the cost for quality publishing and free access to potential readers, authors pay single-time article processing charges (APC) for publication of accepted articles. There are no charges for articles which are not accepted by KWP reviewers or editorial team.

The processing fee serves the purposes of the editorial procedure (peer-review, revisions, formatting and proof-reading of a final manuscript), article hosting, journal administration, etc.

Authors can make payment through the following payment methods:

  • Online Payment with Credit/Debit Card
  • Bank Transfer
  • Moneygram/Western Union

For invoices and further information, please contact us at editorial@kwpublications.com

Authorship credit should be based on meeting the following criteria: 1) substantial contribution to paper concept or design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or reviewing and introducing fundamental changes in it; 3) final approval of the version to be published.

All persons designated as authors and co-authors should meet these criteria. As co-authors of a paper there should be identified all persons who have made significant scientific contributions to the work reported, and who therefore share responsibility its content and results. Authors should also appropriately recognize the contributions of technical staff and data professionals. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship (e.g. financial support) should be listed in the section “Acknowledgements” (financial disclosure). Editors retain the right to request information about the contributions of each person in writing the article.

Authors should also be aware that the following phenomena are the examples of scientific misconduct and must be avoided: ghostwriting and guestwriting authorship.

A group of co-authors should jointly make the decision about the order in which their names are given. During manuscript submission, the submitting author must provide contact information (full name, email address, institutional affiliation and mailing address) for all of the co-authors. The author who submits the manuscript for publication accepts the responsibility of notifying all co-authors of the manuscript being submitted. Corresponding author must fill in and sign the Statement of Originality (in case there are two authors or more), which should be submitted together with the manuscript.

All detected cases of scientific misconduct will be documented and the appropriate institutions and entities will be notified.

Conflict of interest is a situation in which the process of research and publication may be corrupted or its results may be biased because of some other interests of its participants. It may concern any one or more of the participants of research and publication process – the author, the reviewer, or the editor. Conflicts of interest may occur for financial (e.g. employment opportunities, fees or other compensation arrangements, beneficial ownership of stock) or other reasons (e.g., personal relationships, pursuit of academic career, intellectual passion, political involvement etc.) that can reasonably be expected to influence motivations or results of actions of participants of the publication process.

Conflicts of interest constitute a serious threat to the integrity and objectivity of both scientific research and publishing. Therefore best practice for authors, reviewers and editors alike, is to avoid conflicts of interest situations whenever possible.

All participants in publication process who are in the situation of a conflict of interest, must disclose this fact. Of special importance is that if the original research study reported in the manuscript or the preparation of the manuscript was supported by one or more grants, the title and number of the grant(s) and the name of the institution(s) that provided the grants or financial support to conduct, analyze or write-up the study, must be specified in the manuscript.

Editors of KWP journals may use information disclosed in conflict-of-interest and financial-support statements as a basis for editorial decisions. The corresponding author must either notify the editor at the time of submission that there is no conflict of interest to declare, or fairly and effectively communicate all conflicts of interest, which will then be acknowledged in the published article.

Authors are required to faithfully acknowledge and identify contributions of other persons to their reported work as well as clearly identify sources of both data and ideas. Authors should cite all publications that have been important in development of the submitted study and that will guide the reader to the earlier researchers that are essential for understanding the present analysis.

Authors are required to make reasonable and diligent efforts to find, and then accurately cite, original sources and publications. Authors should only present as reliable either personally verified or peer-reviewed sources of scientific data and literature.

Authors must not engage in plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Plagiarism is verbatim or near-verbatim copying, or paraphrasing without due modification, of text, data, or other material containing results of another person’s work, without explicit identification of the source of such material. Similarly, self-plagiarism is replicating of the author’s own previously published text or results without acknowledgement of the source. Exercising care for publishing only original research, editors of KWP are committed to deterring plagiarism and self-plagiarism and may use special software to screen submitted manuscripts for similarity to previously published material. The manuscripts may be screened during the whole editorial cycle, including submission process and until the final publication in online or print form.

Manuscripts will be reviewed with due respect for authors’ and reviewers' confidentiality. Our editors have been instructed to not disclose information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, criticism by reviewers, or ultimate fate) to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Manuscripts sent for review are privileged communications. Therefore, reviewers and members of the editorial staff must respect the authors’ rights by not publicly discussing the authors’ work or appropriating their ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers may not make copies of the manuscript for their files and will not share it with others, except with the editor’s permission. Reviewers should return or destroy copies of manuscripts after submitting reviews.

In an effort to better serve our researchers, librarians, and others in the academic community, KWP believes clarity in the publishing record is a critical component of information distribution. Recognizing a published article as a finalized “Version of Record” establishes the expectation that it can be relied upon as accurate, complete, and citable. KWP defines this Version of Record as the initial article publication for open access journals.

It is presumed that manuscripts report on work based on honest observations. However occasionally information becomes available with may contradict this. In such situations KWP Publishing journals apply Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines on corrections, retractions and expressions of concern.

Corrections

Errors in published papers may be identified requiring publication of a correction in the form of a corrigendum or erratum. Because articles can be read and cited as soon as they are published, any changes thereafter could potentially impact those who read and cited the earlier version. KWP provides authors with an opportunity to review article proofs prior to publication with the express goal of ensuring accuracy of the content. Publishing an erratum or corrigendum increases the likelihood readers will find out about the change and also explains the specifics of the change.

Corrigenda and Errata are published on a numbered page and will contain the original article's citation. Cases where these corrections are insufficient to address an error will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by the Editor in Chief. Inadequacies arising from the normal course of new scientific research are not within the scope of this and will require no correction or withdrawal.

Expressions of Concern

Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article it is the Editor in Chief's responsibility to ensure that the matter is adequately addressed, usually by the authors' sponsoring institution. It is not normally the Editor in Chief's responsibility to carry out the investigation or make a determination. The Editor in Chief should be promptly informed of the decision of the sponsoring institution and a retraction printed should it be determined that a fraudulent paper was published. Alternatively, the Editor in Chief may choose to publish an expression of concern over aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work.

Article Withdrawal

Articles may be withdrawn by corresponding author before accepting for publication. If it is accepted, it could be used only for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like. Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like), may be “Withdrawn” from the Journal. Articles which have been published under an issue could not be withdrawn.

Article removal: legal limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article Replacement

In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.

All content of this journal is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

FINANCIAL MODEL
In order to meet its financial needs to run the journal smoothly, KWP has relied to frame its business model of Article Processing and Publishing Charges. 

All journals published by KWP, are open access under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license. The open-access policy offers free and easy access of scholarly work to the global audience. For this purpose, the cost for quality publishing and free access to potential readers, authors pay single-time article processing charges (APC) for publication of accepted articles. There are no charges for articles which are not accepted by KWP reviewers or the editorial team.

The processing fee serves the purposes of the editorial procedure (peer-review, revisions, formatting and proof-reading of the final manuscript), article hosting, journal administration, etc.

Author Fees

This journal charges the following author fees.

Article Submission Fees: 0.00 (USD)
There are no fees for submitting articles to the journal.

Online Article Publication: 65.00 (USD)
If this paper is accepted for publication, you will be asked to pay an Article Publication Fee of $65 USD to cover publication costs.