Selection and Rejection Criteria

Article Qualification and Rejection Criteria

The Jurnal Pendidikan: Media, Strategi, dan Metode (JPMSM) applies transparent, academically grounded, and ethically responsible criteria in determining whether a manuscript is eligible for peer review and publication. The selection process is intended to ensure that every published article contributes meaningfully to the development of educational knowledge, particularly in the areas of learning media, instructional strategies, teaching methods, educational technology, project-based learning, active learning, collaborative learning, and related innovations in education. Editorial decisions are based exclusively on the manuscript’s academic quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance to the journal’s scope, and compliance with publication ethics, without discrimination based on the authors’ institutional affiliation, nationality, gender, religion, ethnicity, academic position, or personal background.

Initial Editorial Qualification

Every submitted manuscript undergoes an initial editorial screening before being forwarded to external reviewers. A manuscript may qualify for peer review when it meets the following conditions:

The manuscript is relevant to the aims and scope of JPMSM.
The manuscript presents an identifiable educational problem, clear research objective, and meaningful scientific contribution.
The work is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration by another journal.
The manuscript follows the official JPMSM template and contains the required components, including the title, author information, abstract, keywords, introduction, method, results, discussion, conclusion, and references.
The research method is appropriate to the research questions and is explained sufficiently to allow readers to understand or replicate the study.
The results are supported by adequate, authentic, and relevant data.
The discussion interprets the findings critically and connects them with relevant theories and previous research.
The references are academically credible, relevant to the topic, predominantly recent, and formatted according to APA Seventh Edition.
The manuscript complies with research ethics, publication ethics, authorship requirements, and applicable ethical approval or informed-consent requirements.
The manuscript demonstrates acceptable academic language, logical organization, and adequate readability.
The similarity result does not exceed the journal’s maximum threshold of 20%. A similarity score below 20% does not automatically guarantee acceptance when plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, duplicate publication, or unattributed use of sources is identified.

Manuscripts that pass the editorial screening are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers through a double-blind peer-review process. The reviewers assess the manuscript’s originality, relevance, methodological quality, validity of the findings, quality of discussion, ethical compliance, and overall contribution to education.

Grounds for Desk Rejection

The Editor may reject a manuscript before peer review when one or more of the following conditions are identified:

Outside the journal’s scope. The manuscript does not substantially address educational media, strategies, methods, learning innovation, educational technology, or another area covered by JPMSM.
Insufficient scientific contribution. The manuscript merely repeats widely established information, lacks a clear research problem, does not demonstrate a research gap, or offers no meaningful theoretical, methodological, or practical contribution.
Serious non-compliance with the journal template. The manuscript does not follow the required structure, formatting, citation style, table and figure presentation, or other essential submission requirements.
Incomplete manuscript components. Important sections, such as the research method, results, discussion, conclusion, ethical statement, author information, or references, are absent or substantially incomplete.
Weak or inappropriate methodology. The research design, sampling procedure, instruments, data-collection process, or analytical method is unsuitable, unclear, unsupported, or inconsistent with the stated research objectives.
Insufficient or unverifiable data. The manuscript presents conclusions without adequate data, omits essential research evidence, contains inconsistent results, or fails to explain how the reported data were obtained and analysed.
Plagiarism or excessive similarity. The manuscript contains copied text, unattributed ideas, inappropriate paraphrasing, duplicate publication, or a similarity result exceeding the journal’s maximum threshold.
Simultaneous or duplicate submission. The manuscript has been published previously, substantially overlaps with another publication, or is being reviewed by another journal at the same time.
Fabrication or falsification. The manuscript contains fabricated, manipulated, altered, or intentionally misleading data, images, citations, participant information, or research findings.
Unreliable or fabricated references. The references cannot be verified, do not support the claims made in the manuscript, contain inaccurate bibliographic information, or appear to have been artificially generated.
Violation of research ethics. The study does not provide necessary information concerning informed consent, participant confidentiality, ethical approval, protection of vulnerable participants, or responsible data management.
Authorship or conflict-of-interest concerns. The manuscript involves guest authorship, ghost authorship, disputed authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other violations of publication ethics.
Unacceptable academic language and organization. The manuscript is written in a manner that prevents meaningful academic evaluation, contains severe logical inconsistencies, or requires complete rewriting rather than reasonable editorial revision.
Inappropriate use of artificial intelligence. The manuscript contains undisclosed or irresponsible use of generative artificial intelligence, including fabricated data, false citations, inaccurate statements, or machine-generated content that the authors have not critically verified. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all submitted content.
Failure to respond to editorial requirements. The authors do not provide requested documents, declarations, ethical information, revisions, or clarifications within the specified editorial period.

Desk rejection does not necessarily indicate that the research topic has no academic value. It indicates that the submitted manuscript, in its current form, does not satisfy the minimum requirements for external peer review in JPMSM.

Grounds for Rejection after Peer Review

A manuscript may be rejected following peer review when the reviewers and Editor identify fundamental problems that cannot be resolved through reasonable revision. Such grounds may include:

The research problem, objective, and conclusions are substantially inconsistent.
The manuscript does not establish sufficient originality or contribution to existing knowledge.
The research design contains fundamental weaknesses that invalidate the findings.
The sample, participants, data sources, or research setting are inadequate for answering the research questions.
The research instruments lack adequate validity, reliability, credibility, or methodological justification.
The statistical, qualitative, mixed-method, or other analytical procedures are inappropriate or incorrectly applied.
The results do not support the conclusions presented by the authors.
The discussion is largely descriptive, fails to interpret the findings, or does not engage meaningfully with relevant previous studies.
Major ethical concerns emerge during the review process.
The authors are unable or unwilling to address essential reviewer and editorial comments.
The revised manuscript continues to contain serious inconsistencies, unsupported claims, unreliable references, or substantial formatting and language problems.
The extent of the required changes would effectively require a new study or a complete reconstruction of the manuscript.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The final decision is made by the Editor based on the complete manuscript, the reviewers’ evaluations, the authors’ responses, ethical considerations, and the journal’s academic standards.

Criteria for Publication Qualification

A manuscript may be accepted for publication when it:

Falls within the aims and scope of JPMSM.
Presents original, relevant, and academically significant work.
Uses a sound and adequately explained research method.
Reports credible findings supported by sufficient evidence.
Provides a critical and theoretically informed discussion.
Demonstrates a clear contribution to educational theory, policy, or practice.
Complies with research and publication ethics.
Uses accurate, relevant, and verifiable references.
Satisfactorily addresses the reviewers’ and Editor’s comments.
Meets the journal’s language, structure, formatting, and technical publication requirements.

After evaluation, the editorial decision may be classified as accepted, accepted with minor revisions, major revisions required, or rejected. Acceptance is granted only after the Editor confirms that all substantive, ethical, and technical requirements have been fulfilled.

Editorial Independence

The payment of an article processing charge does not influence manuscript selection, peer-review outcomes, or editorial decisions. Publication fees are processed only in accordance with the journal’s author-fee policy and do not guarantee acceptance. Editorial decisions are made independently on the basis of academic merit, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal.

Confidentiality and Integrity of the Decision

All submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. Editors and reviewers must not use unpublished information for personal advantage or disclose manuscript content to unauthorized parties. JPMSM reserves the right to suspend the evaluation, reject the manuscript, retract a publication, or contact the authors’ institutions when credible evidence of serious publication misconduct is identified.