Submissions

Author Guidelines

Scope of Submissions

The Editorial Board of the Journal of Learning Theory and Methodology (JLTM) accepts for publication original experimental studies, review articles, and brief reports that advance learning theory, didactics, and methodology, with a clear focus on learning processes and instructional design.

JLTM considers manuscripts within the following interrelated areas:

• Didactics of motor and verbal learning (skill acquisition, instructional conditions, learning mechanisms);
• Didactics of secondary education (school-level learning processes and pedagogical interventions);
• Didactics of higher education (teaching and learning in tertiary education, curriculum and assessment);
• Psychological foundations of knowledge, abilities, and skills development (cognitive, motivational, and self-regulatory processes).

Studies in physical education, sport, or applied domains are considered only when explicitly framed within learning theory and instructional design.

Manuscripts that are purely descriptive, narrowly local, or weakly connected to learning theory may be rejected prior to peer review.

Types of Manuscripts and Length

JLTM accepts the following manuscript types:

• Original Research Articles
  Maximum length: up to 3,000 words
  (excluding title page, abstract, tables/figures, figure legends, acknowledgments, conflict of interest statement, and references).
• Review Articles (systematic, bibliometric, or analytical)
  Maximum length: up to 6,000 words.
• Brief Reports
  Maximum length: up to 1,000 words.

Word limits are enforced to ensure analytical clarity and methodological precision.

Language

Manuscripts may be submitted in English.
Authors are responsible for linguistic accuracy and academic style.

Reporting Standards: PRISMA, CONSORT, STROBE

To ensure methodological rigor, transparency, and reproducibility, JLTM requires compliance with internationally recognized reporting standards, depending on the study design.

Mandatory Guidelines

• PRISMA — mandatory for systematic reviews and meta-analyses synthesizing evidence on learning processes, instructional models, educational interventions, training programs, skill acquisition, and related domains.
• CONSORT — mandatory for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and applicable to experimental and quasi-experimental studies evaluating the effectiveness of instructional strategies, pedagogical technologies, learning environments, or intervention programs.
• STROBE — mandatory for observational studies (cohort, cross-sectional, and case–control designs), including research on learner populations, educational contexts, learning behaviors, performance indicators, and developmental trajectories.

Narrative Reviews

Narrative reviews are not subject to PRISMA, CONSORT, or STROBE; however, they must demonstrate:

• a clearly articulated conceptual rationale;
• transparent criteria for source selection;
• explicit thematic or analytical structure;
• a coherent synthetic interpretation of the literature.

Narrative reviews that lack methodological clarity may be declined.

Submission Requirement

At the time of submission, authors must:

• explicitly identify the study design;
• upload the completed PRISMA, CONSORT, or STROBE checklist (where applicable) as a supplementary file.

Manuscripts that do not comply with these requirements may be returned to authors before peer review.

Methodological Orientation (Editorial Filter)

The Editorial Board prioritizes manuscripts that:

• focus on the learning process, not only learning outcomes;
• include a controlled or simulated experimental learning situation;
• define independent variables as instructional, pedagogical, or learning-related factors;
• define dependent variables that characterize learning effectiveness;
• use psychological, psychophysiological, or medico-biological indicators as explanatory variables, not as isolated endpoints.

Studies lacking a clear methodological explanation of learning effectiveness are unlikely to be accepted.

Ethical Requirements

Research involving human participants must comply with internationally recognized ethical standards, including the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant institutional and national regulations.

Authors must state in the manuscript that the study was approved by an appropriate Research Ethics Committee / Institutional Review Board (IRB) and that informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their inclusion in the study.

For studies involving children or other vulnerable populations, authors must confirm that consent was obtained from a parent or legal guardian and that additional safeguards were implemented to protect participants’ rights and well-being.

Failure to comply with these ethical requirements may result in rejection of the manuscript.

Structure of an Original Research Article

An original article should include the following elements:

1. Title
   Recommended length: no more than 15 words.
2. Author Information
   Full names of authors; institutional affiliation(s).
3. Abstract (200–300 words)
   The abstract must include:
• title of the article;
• author name(s) and affiliation(s);
• purpose of the study;
• materials and methods;
• main results;
• conclusions;
• keywords.
4. Introduction
   Problem statement; analysis of recent research; research hypothesis (where applicable); purpose of the study.
5. Materials and Methods
   Participants; research design and organization; procedures; statistical analysis.
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusions
9. Ethics Approval
10. Informed Consent
11. Data Availability Statement 
12. AI Transparency Statement
13. Acknowledgments
14. Conflict of Interest Statement
15. References
16. Author Information

Editorial Considerations

In addition to scientific rigor, editors may consider the citation plausibility of a manuscript, defined as its realistic potential to contribute to and be cited within the international learning research literature.

Manuscripts that fall outside the journal’s conceptual scope or lack theoretical and methodological contribution may be rejected at the editorial screening stage.

We recommend using the article formatting template (.dotx, 19 KB).

Manuscript Section Requirements

Title Page

The title page must include the article title, list of authors, their institutional affiliations, author contributions to the manuscript, and information about the corresponding author. The formatting requirements for these elements are as follows:

Title

The manuscript title should be concise and informative.
The recommended title length is no more than 15 words.

Authors

The author name format is: first name, patronymic initial, and last name.
The list of authors with full names should be provided in one line, separated by commas.
After each author’s surname, a number indicating institutional affiliation and a symbol denoting author contribution should be provided.

Institutional Affiliation

The official name of the institution with which the author is affiliated should be provided on a separate line.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author’s first and last name and email address must be indicated.

Example

DIDACTICS: METHODOLOGICAL BASIS OF MOTOR LEARNING

Olena Petrova¹ABCD, Tymur Myrnyi²ABCD

¹ H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University
² Kharkiv State Academy of Physical Culture

Author Contributions:
A – research methodology development;
B – data collection;
C – statistical analysis;
D – manuscript preparation;
E – funding acquisition.

Corresponding author: Tymur Myrnyi, e-mail: tmfv@tmfv.com.ua

Introduction

Problem Statement

The main contradiction to be investigated in the study should be identified.

Analysis of Recent Research and Publications

Research Hypothesis and Purpose

Materials and Methods

For Original Articles

Participants

The study population must be described.

Research Organization

The methods used and their purposes should be specified; research procedures and the algorithm of the pedagogical experiment should be described.

Statistical Analysis

Statistical methods used and their purposes should be indicated.

The study must have ethical approval from the relevant institution with signatures of the ethics committee.
For experiments conducted in the field of physical education and sport, the author(s) must have institutional approval for publication of experimental data.

For Review Articles

Materials for Analysis

Characteristics of studies selected for analysis should be specified.
All information sources (e.g., databases with coverage dates) and the date of the last search must be indicated.
A complete electronic search strategy for at least one database must be provided to allow replication.

Study Organization

Inclusion criteria for studies should be formulated.
The data extraction process should be described.
All variables for which data were sought should be listed and defined.

Methods of Analysis

Methods for data processing and synthesis of study results should be described.

Results

For Original Articles

Results must be presented in tables and described in a logical sequence in the text.

Tables should include the following columns:

1. Test number
2. Test name
3. Testing conditions
4. Number of participants
5. Mean value (experimental group)
6. Standard deviation (experimental group)
7. Mean value (control group)
8. Standard deviation (control group)
9. Mean difference between experimental and control groups
10. Actual value of the t-test (or another statistic)
11. Actual p-value

References to tables in the text are mandatory.
Do not repeat all data from tables or figures in the text.
Emphasize statistically significant changes and describe characteristic trends.

Actual p-values should be reported to two decimal places (e.g., “p = 0.25”, not “p > 0.05”).
Statistical significance results should be accompanied by effect size indicators or confidence intervals for differences.

The number of tables and figures (graphs) should be limited to six.

For Review Articles

The number of studies screened, assessed for eligibility, and included in the review should be reported.
For each study, extracted characteristics and citations should be provided.
For all reviewed outcomes, summary data for each analysis group and estimates of potential effects should be presented.

Discussion

For Original Articles

• review of the main hypothesis;
• discussion of findings in comparison with relevant publications cited in the Introduction;
• considerations of practical application of the results;
• justification and commentary on the importance of the findings;
• conclusions on future research prospects based on the discussion.

For Review Articles

Summary of main findings, taking into account the strength of evidence for each key outcome.
Discussion of limitations at the study and outcome levels.

Conclusions

Conclusions should reflect the results and be directly related to the study purpose.
Conclusions not supported by the obtained data should be avoided.

Additional mandatory sections (required for all submissions)

To ensure compliance with international publishing standards (Scopus, Web of Science, COPE), all manuscripts submitted to Journal of Learning Theory and Methodology (JLTM) must include the following sections after the Conclusions.

9. Ethics Approval

Authors must state whether ethical approval was required and obtained.

• If applicable: name of the ethics committee and approval number must be provided.
• If not required, this must be explicitly stated.

10. Informed Consent

For studies involving human participants, authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained.
For minors, consent from a parent or legal guardian and participant assent (when appropriate) must be indicated.
If not applicable, authors must state this clearly.

11. Data Availability Statement (mandatory for all articles)

Each manuscript must include a Data Availability Statement indicating one of the following:

• data are publicly available in a repository (with DOI or URL);
• data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request;
• data are not publicly available due to ethical or privacy restrictions;
• data are not applicable because no new data were created or analyzed.

Manuscripts without a Data Availability Statement will not proceed to publication.

12. AI Transparency Statement

Authors must disclose whether AI-assisted tools were used during manuscript preparation.

Examples:

• The authors used AI-assisted tools for language editing only and take full responsibility for the content.
• The authors did not use AI-assisted tools in the preparation of this manuscript.

13. Acknowledgements

Optional. Used to acknowledge technical, institutional, or non-financial support.
If not applicable, state: Not applicable.

14. Conflicts of Interest

All authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest.

• If none exist, use the statement:
  The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Editorial note

Submissions missing any of the required sections above will be returned for technical correction before peer review or publication.

Literature

The number of references must be at least 30.
The majority of references should be articles published in scientific journals.
Please limit other reference types (books, conference proceedings, etc.) to five or fewer.
Please reduce the number of non-English references and generally avoid sources without at least an English abstract.

DOI identifiers are required for all online publications.
Use the full DOI URL format (e.g., https://doi.org/10.17309/tmfv.2018.3.01).

References must be formatted according to APA style, listed in order of citation, and not numbered.

Examples

Moroz, Y. V. (2015). Features of motor abilities development in 7–8 grade students. Theory and Methods of Physical Education, (3), 15–31.
https://doi.org/10.17309/tmfv.2015.3.1145

Han, A., Fu, A., Cobley, S., & Sanders, R. H. (2017). Effectiveness of exercise intervention on improving fundamental movement skills and motor coordination in overweight/obese children and adolescents: A systematic review. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 21(1), 89–102.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2017.07.001

Khudolii, O. M., Ivashchenko, O. V., & Chernenko, S. O. (2015). Simulation of junior schoolchildren’s training to acrobatic exercises and vaults. Pedagogics, Psychology, Medical-Biological Problems of Physical Training and Sports, 19(7), 64–71.
https://doi.org/10.15561/18189172.2015.0709

Iadreev, V., Cherkashin, I., Vujkov, S., & Drid, P. (2015). Differences in anthropometric, motoric and cognitive abilities between athletically trained and untrained girls. Biomedical Human Kinetics, 7(1), 73–77.
https://doi.org/10.1515/bhk-2015-0012

Prykhodko, V. (2017). Comparative analysis of coordination abilities development indicators in 5th–7th graders. Theory and Methods of Physical Education, 17(3), 148–156.
https://doi.org/10.17309/tmfv.2017.3.1199

References

The reference list is duplicated.
For sources published in Cyrillic, transliteration into Latin script is required.
References are formatted according to APA style, listed in order of citation, and not numbered.

Transliteration tools:

• Ukrainian: http://ukrlit.org/transliteratsiia

Examples

Iermakov, S. (2001). Modeli biomekhanicheskikh sistem v organizatsii effektivnogo deystviya sportsmena. Pedahohika, psykholohiya ta medyko-biolohichni problemy fizychnoho vykhovannya i sportu, (17), 40–47.

Iermakov, S. S. (2001). Modeli rabochikh poz sportsmena kak faktor effektivnosti vypolneniya dvigatel’nykh deystviy. Fizicheskoe vospitanie studentov tvorcheskikh spetsial’nostey, (4), 16–22.

Iermakov, S. S. (2010). Biomekhanichni modeli udarnykh rukhiv u sportyvnykh ihrakh u konteksti vdoskonalennya tekhnichnoyi pidhotovky sportsmeniv. Theory and Methods of Physical Education, (4), 11–18.

In-text Citations

Manuscripts must use references from a non-numbered reference list.
No more than 2–3 sources should be cited in a single in-text citation.

Author Information

Provided in the following format:
Last name, initials: email address; ORCID iD; department, institution name, institution address.

The ORCID profile must include information on employment, education, and publications over the last three years.

Example

Ivashchenko, O. V.: olga@tmfv.com.ua; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2708-5636;
Department of Theory and Methods of Physical Education,
H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University,
29 Alchevskykh St., Kharkiv, 61002, Ukraine.

Manuscript Submission Procedure

Manuscripts are accepted exclusively through the online submission system.
The submission process consists of five steps.

Step 1

Provide preliminary information about your submission.
To proceed to Step 2, click “Save and continue”.

Step 2

To upload your manuscript, select “Article Text” and click “Upload file”.
After uploading, click “Continue”.
Once all files are uploaded, click “Finish”.
Return to the “Submit an Article” page and click “Save and continue”.

Step 3

Add metadata in Ukrainian and English:
Title, abstract, authors, keywords, references
(first field – Latin script, second field – Cyrillic).

Authors: For each author provide first and last name, contact information, ORCID iD, affiliation, and biographical note (department, institutional address, email) in both Ukrainian and English.

Step 4

Confirm readiness to complete submission by clicking “OK”.

Step 5

Submission completed. The editor has been notified.