Editorial

Bahrul Hayat

Faculty of Psychology, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University

bahrulhayat@uinjkt.ac.id

I am honored to serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Indonesian Journal of Psychological and Educational Measurement (JP3I). This year, JP3I achieved SINTA Rank 1 (SINTA 1), the highest level of national accreditation for periodic scientific publications. This achievement came about as a result of JP3I's February 2023 indexing in the global database Scopus. Thus, JP3I is among the few Indonesian journals with a SINTA 1 rating. With this accomplishment, the management of JP3I will put in even more effort to raise the standard of publications and add to the corpus of scientific knowledge by disseminating research findings and the most recent advancements in psychometrics and psychological and educational measurement.

Scope of JP3I: Psychometrics

As defined in the APA Dictionary of Statistics and Research Methods, Psychometrics is the branch of psychology concerned with the quantification and measurement of human attributes, behavior, performance and the like, as well as with the design, analysis, and improvement of the tests, questionnaires, and so on used in such measurements (American Psychological Association, 2014). In line with this definition, experts argue that the scope of psychometrics consists of four areas: test theory, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multivariate statistics (e.g., Maydeu-Olivares & McArdle, 2005). Test theory encompasses three main categories: Rasch Measurement Theory (RMT), Item Response Theory (IRT), and Classical Test Theory. In addition to these four categories, research synthesis, including meta-analyses (Hedges & Olkin, 1985) and systematic literature reviews (Siddaway et al., 2019), particularly in the measurement domain, are acceptable subjects for publication in JP3I. Therefore, these five subjects will continue to be themes published in JP3I in the future. JP3I can serve as a platform for researchers worldwide, including Indonesia, to share their findings on these five subjects.

Open Research Culture and Avoiding Questionable Research Practice (QRP)

Following the publication of Open Research Culture (Nosek et al., 2015), researchers and authors of scientific articles have been advised to upload raw data, syntax or software code, and data analysis results into open data repositories such as the Open Science Framework (OSF) or other repositories. This openness principle governs the publishing of research findings as scientific articles. There are a number of reasons why this openness principle should be put into practice. The first and foremost reason is to avoid QRP (Swift et al., 2022). QRP has been proven to be a major problem in research in the field of social sciences due to the lack of solid knowledge and understanding of researchers in applying advanced methods, resulting in inaccurate interpretations and conclusions (Moran et al., 2023). JP3I will put in the utmost effort to prevent QRP and is steadfastly committed to upholding the values of an open science culture.

APA Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS)

Since the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed-Methods were published in 2018 (Appelbaum et al., 2018; Levitt et al., 2018) the journal authors, reviewers, and editors have been requested to use these standards as guidelines to enhancing scientific rigor in peer-reviewed journal articles. Every study, survey, or experiment has its own reporting standards, which are thoroughly explained in JARS Quantitative. In addition, JARS Quantitative includes reporting guidelines for the use of specialized techniques, such as reporting guidelines for studies using Bayesian statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM), which includes confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (see Appelbaum et al., 2018). Researchers who will submit a manuscript to JP3I are advised to use JARS as a checklist to ensure the completeness of the elements of the standards in the manuscript. By following this process, the quality of manuscripts submitted to JP3I will be of a caliber that matches other international periodicals.

APA 7th Edition Writing Standards

JP3I has employed the American Psychological Association's 7th edition of the Writing Standards (APA, 2020). Nonetheless, quite a lot of manuscripts submitted to JP3I still follow the guidelines of the APA 6th edition. I encourage authors to make sure their manuscripts adhere to the writing standards outlined in APA 7th. By adhering to these writing guidelines, authors can be assured of a more efficient manuscript publication process, with fewer technical revisions concerning style and format. APA PsycNet, which is available without charge, can be used to write references. Until further notice, JP3I will continue to use the APA 7th writing standards.

Ethical clearance

JP3I is steadfast in its adherence to the research ethics guidelines established by the global scientific community, with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki serving as the primary source of guidance (see, Striefel, 2001). The authors wishing to publish their study's results in JP3I must adhere to these ethical principles. The Institutional Reviews Board (IRB), either at the faculty or university level, can fulfill this standard by conducting a review of research ethics. JP3I will not accept articles that do not adhere to international research ethics standards.

It is hoped that the five directions above will serve as benchmarks in the future as JP3I quality standards are developed. JP3I is committed to enhancing the quality of its publications and adhering to scientific publication standards, as recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the international scientific community. In closing this Editorial Note, I would like to sincerely thank the Managing Editor, Editorial Team, and Reviewers for their continued dedication to maintaining the excellent standard of JP3I publications.

References

American Psychological Association. (2014). APA dictionary of statistics and research methods. American Psychological Association.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Appelbaum, M., Cooper, H., Kline, R. B., Mayo-Wilson, E., Nezu, A. M., & Rao, S. M. (2018). Journal Article Reporting Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board Task Force report. American Psychologist, 73, 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000191

Hedges, L. V., & Olkin, I. (1985). Statistical methods for meta-analysis. Academic Press.

Levitt, H. M., Bamberg, M., Creswell, J. W., Frost, D. M., Josselson, R., & Suirez-Orozco, C. (2018). Journal Article Reporting Standards for Qualitative Primary, Qualitative Meta-Analytic, and Mixed Methods Research in Psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board Task Force report. American Psychologist, 73, 26-46. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000151

Maydeu-Olivares, A., & McArdle, J.J. (Eds.) (2005). Contemporary Psychometrics. A Festschrift to Roderick P. McDonald. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Moran, C., Richard, A., Wilson, K., Twomey, R., & Coroiu, A. (2023). I know its bad, but I have been pressured into it: Questionable research practices among psychology students in Canada. Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne, 64(1), 12-24. https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000326

Nosek, B. A., Alter, G., Banks, G. C., Borsboom, D., Bowman, S. D., Breckler, S. J., Buck, S., Chambers, C. D., Chin, G., Christensen, G., Contestabile, M., Dafoe, A., Eich, E., Freese, J., Glennerster, R., Goroff, D., Green, D. P., Hesse, B., Humphreys, M., . . Yarkoni, T. (2015). Promoting an open research culture: Author guidelines for journals could help to promote transparency, openness, and reproducibility. Science, 348(6242), 1422-1425. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab2374

Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V. (2019). How to do a systematic review: A best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 747-770. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102803

Striefel, S. (2001). Ethical research issues: Going beyond the Declaration of Helsinki. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 26, 39-59. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009515621157

Swift, J. K., Christopherson, C. D., Bird, M. O., Z., A., & Goode, J. (2022). Questionable research practices among faculty and students in APA-accredited clinical and counseling psychology doctoral programs. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 16(3), 299-305. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000322