Submissions

File format

The preferred formats are Microsoft Word for Windows or Macintosh, or rich text format. Word-compatible files written by other software (e.g., OpenOffice) may also be submitted. Other formats such as PDF files may be acceptable subject to prior consultation with the editors. Printed versions (hard copy) are not acceptable. Compressed file formats such as zip are not acceptable unless by prior arrangement.

Page setup

Title

Arial 14 point bold followed by one 10 point blank line.

Author names and institutional affiliation

Do not include author names and affiliations in your submission.
If your paper is accepted for publication, you will be asked to provide author names and affiliations for the manuscript.

Note: Please ensure that you register all authors when submitting the paper for review. This enables us to contact you during the review process. The system also automatically uses this data to produce table of contents, etc. As a result, please ensure names are capitalised and spelled correctly, and that you provide correct and durable email addresses.

Abstract

Abstracts should not exceed 200 words. Use Times New Roman 10 point, justified, indented 1.0 cm left and right, not italicised. Do not use a heading for the abstract or headings within the abstract. Place one blank line before and after. 

Implications

Immediately following the abstract leave a blank line and then in italics "Implications for practice or policy". On the next line begin your bullet points.

The readers of this journal include educators, instructional designers, policy makers, administrators, leaders and researchers more broadly. The intention here is to offer readers a succinct insight into how the research being reported in this paper may be translated into practice or policy. Even for theoretically focused papers we believe that it is a useful enterprise to explore the implications for policy or practice, although it is recognised that they may be more exploratory in nature.

The section should comply with the following guidelines:

• 2-5 brief bullet points.
• Total words: 75 maximum for all of the bullets combined.
• Each should be a full sentence.
• Each should be pithy – directly related to what can be done in policy or practice
• One strategy is to start each bullet by identifying who the implications are aimed for (e.g., “First year student learning outcomes can be improved by…”; “Course leaders could avoid …. by …”; “Assessors may need to consider…”)

Keywords

Immediately following the implications section leave a blank line and in italics type "Keywords:" and then the 3-7 keywords. 

Note: The keywords are used for searches within the journal site as well as externally. It is advisable to include as your last keyword the research approach or method used (e.g., qualitative, ethnographic, case study, quantitative, large survey, meta-analysis).

Headings

Please use no more than 3 levels of heading and apply consistently.

• First level. Arial 12 point bold, left aligned, sentence case, followed by one blank line. Numbering of first level headings is not acceptable.
• Second level. Arial 10 point bold, left aligned, sentence case, followed by one blank line. Numbering of second level headings is not acceptable.
• Third level. Use of a third level heading is discouraged. A bulleted or numbered list (like this list) is our preferred alternative. If your work really requires a third level heading, use Times New Roman 10 point italic, left justified, sentence case, and not followed by a blank line.

Body text

Times New Roman 10 point, single spaced, justified. Blank lines before and after headings and paragraphs are to be sized the same as text lines (i.e., Times New Roman 10 point).

Paragraphs

Use a blank line to conclude each paragraph, and no indents.

Do not use "spacing before" and "spacing after."

Text emphases

Do not use bold or underline.

Use italics for:

• titles of books, journals, films, video, TV programs,
• volume number in a journal you cite
• scales on tests
• genera, species and varieties of animals
• the introduction of a new, technical, or key term or label (but only the first time it is used)
• letters, words, or phrases cited as linguistic examples
• statistical tests and probability, but do not italicise subscripts
• anchors in a rating scale, that is, a scale ranging from 1 (very likely) to 5 (unlikely).

Do not use italics for:

• emphasis
• foreign phrases
• chemical or trigonometric terms.

Capitalise:

• the first word of a sentence
• the first word after a colon (if there is a complete sentence after the colon)
• the name of sections of the manuscript
• departments in a university if used as a proper name
• trade and brand names of drugs, equipment, food.

Do not capitalise nouns that:

• describe common elements of books and tables (e.g., chapter, section, column, row)
• precede a variable
• are names of effects, conditions or variables in a study
• name laws, theories, models, statistical procedures, or hypotheses
• make up an abbreviation.

Quotation marks and quotations

APA style favours double quotation marks over single quotation marks, which are used only for quotes within quotes. This is contrary to some Australian and British styles.

Use double quotation marks to:

• introduce a word or phrase used as an ironic comment, slang, or as an invented or coined expression (but only the first time the word or phrase is used)
• set off the title of an article or chapter in a periodical or book when the title is mentioned in the text
• reproduce material from test items or verbatim instructions.

Do not use double quotation marks to:

• identify anchors of a scale (use italics)
• cite a letter, word, phrase, or sentence as a linguistic example (use italics)
• introduce a technical or key term (use italics)
• hedge (no punctuation).

Short quotations should be given with double quotation marks in your running text, while longer quotations of more than 40 words should be formatted as quotations.

For longer quotations (more than 40 words) use Times New Roman 10 point, justified, single spaced, indented 1.0 cm left and right, not italicised, without quotation marks, and one blank line before and after. Referencing for the quotation may be given in the running text immediately before the quotation, or may be appended to the end of the quotation. (Author, YYYY; p. xx)

All punctuation marks should be included exactly as they appear in the quoted material.

Series and lists

In a paragraph enclose lowercase letters in parentheses to indicate a series if order is important, that is, (a) … (b) … (c) ….

Elements with a series of sentences or paragraphs can be offset. Use bullets or numbers (if order is important).

• Use the standard Microsoft Word indent from the margin, that is, 63 mm.
• Type the sentence or paragraph after the Arabic number, if order is important, or alternatively use bullet points, such as this example.
• If the element continues over more than one line, the standard Microsoft Word hanging indent should produce the correct result.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations that appear as word entries in the Oxford English Dictionary do not need explanation. (e.g., IQ, ADHD, ISBN).

Use abbreviations sparingly and consider whether the space saved justifies the time necessary for the reader to master the meaning of the abbreviation.

Write out the term to be abbreviated completely on its first appearance. Follow this with its abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter, use the abbreviation. For example … reaction time (RT) is a factor in this test.

Do not capitalise words in anticipation of the abbreviation unless the words would normally be capitalised.

The APA style manual lists many other forms of abbreviation, including Latin, scientific terminology, and those used for statistical analysis. Please consult the manual for more details.

Footnotes

Do not use footnotes.

References: In text citations

Use the author-date system in your running text (i.e., current APA style).

Note: APA 7 now stipulates a work with three or more authors is cited with only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in every citation even the first (unless doing so creates ambiguity between different sources).

Examples:

... this special form (Black & Lines, 1998) is very ...
... as described by Black and Lines (1998) ...
... and this argument (Keystone et al., 2000) is used ...
... across time and space (Jones, 1999a; White & Beckett, 1997).
... Davis et al. (1989) described ...
... determined by beliefs (Davis et al., 1989).

Please make minimal use of URL citations in your running text. Cite an author or organisational name and year (or if there is no year then use n.d.), and then include the appropriate details in the references.

References: Reference list

In your reference list (first level heading, References) please use the style recommended in the current edition of the APA style manual.

This prescribes alphabetical order by first author. Titles of items should be in sentence case. Use Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, hanging-indent 0.5 cm, no blank line between each reference.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

You are required to include the DOI in the references. You are expected to include these whenever they have been assigned.

• The DOI is normally listed on the first page of an article.
• Some publications do not have the DOI listed on the PDF or print version. In this case you should search for the DOI using CrossRef (you may need to register for free). The free DOI lookup searches for DOIs using information such as article title, authors, and publisher information. You can also copy and paste your entire reference list into the Simple Text Query form and CrossRef will return all available DOIs at once.
• If no DOI is returned from your CrossRef search, you need to check the journal site to confirm that no DOI has been assigned. 
• Please do not make up or try to generate your own DOIs. This will result in your article not being published or being removed from publication.
• If there is no DOI available for the publication, you include the URL of the journal article on the journal publisher site.
• Do not include both the DOI and the journal URL. 

For formatting of references - please refer to the APA site (http://www.apastyle.org/).

An example basic format is:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

More than twenty authors: After the 19^th author, include an ellipsis and then the final author.

Tables

Tables should be included in the text body near the first reference to it (not at the end of the paper).

Number all tables with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Use Times New Roman 10 point. Do not add suffix letters to the numbers of the table. After a carriage return, place the title in sentence-style capitalisation on the next line, using Times New Roman 10 point, italic.

The title should be brief but explanatory. Each column should have a title, which should be brief, clear and explanatory (plain text). Limit the use of lines in tables to those that are necessary for clarity: one at the top, one after the headings and one after the last row. All abbreviations in the table should be explained.

Figures and diagrams

Figures should be included in the text body near the first reference to it (not at the end of the paper).

Number all figures with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Use Times New Roman 10 point, italic and place this under the figure. Do not add suffix letters to the numbers of the figure.

The figure itself should have a legend, which explains the symbols used in the figure and is placed within the figure. Add a caption under the figure, following the figure number in plain text and sentence-style capitalisation. This serves as an explanation and a figure title. After the descriptive phrase add information that may be needed to clarify the figure.

Acknowledgments

This is an optional section in which you may record appreciation to individuals or organisations for assisting or supporting the research work. Format as for body text.

Appendices

Avoid using appendices unless absolutely essential to the communication of the paper.

Author contact details

Do not include author contact details on submitted manuscripts. This information is captured by the journal management system when you submit your paper. If your paper is accepted for publication, you will be asked to provide author names and affiliations for the manuscript.

Corresponding author and "Please cite as" notice

Do not include these details at the submission stage. If the paper is accepted the editors will ask you to add/confirm these.