AMERICAN JOURNAL OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The American Journal of Qualitative Research (AJQR) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity, transparency, accountability, and ethical practice in scholarly publishing. These principles apply to all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, reviewers, editors, Editorial Board members, Guest Editors, and the publisher. AJQR follows internationally recognized principles of scholarly publishing and relevant guidance provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Editorial decisions are based solely on scholarly merit, originality, methodological rigor, ethical integrity, relevance to the journal's aims and scope, and contribution to qualitative research. Financial considerations, Article Processing Charges (APCs), personal relationships, institutional affiliations, nationality, geographic origin, or other non-scholarly considerations do not influence editorial decisions.

1. Research Integrity

Authors must present their research honestly, accurately, and transparently. Data, findings, images, analyses, quotations, or other research materials must not be fabricated, falsified, manipulated, selectively reported, or presented in a misleading manner.

Research design, methodology, analytical procedures, and results should be described with sufficient transparency to permit appropriate scholarly evaluation and, where applicable, replication, reproducibility, or secondary analysis. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and reliability of their work before, during, and after publication.

2. Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

Manuscripts submitted to AJQR must be original and must not be simultaneously submitted to or under consideration by another journal.Plagiarism, including the unattributed use of another person's ideas, words, data, images, or other intellectual property, is prohibited. Authors must appropriately cite and acknowledge all sources.

Authors must also appropriately disclose and cite the reuse of their own previously published material. Redundant or duplicate publication of substantially the same work is not permitted unless the reuse is transparent, appropriately referenced, justified, and approved by the journal. Material originating from an author's dissertation or thesis, conference abstract or poster, or other legitimate form of prior scholarly dissemination is not automatically considered duplicate publication. Such prior dissemination should be appropriately disclosed and cited where applicable. Translations of previously published material require appropriate disclosure, attribution, and any necessary permissions. AJQR use iThenticate and other research-integrity screening tools to evaluate submitted manuscripts. Results generated by such tools are reviewed by editors and do not, by themselves, constitute a determination of misconduct.

3. Research and Publication Misconduct

AJQR considers fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate manipulation of data or images, duplicate or redundant publication, fraudulent authorship, undisclosed competing interests, unethical research practices, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, and other serious violations of scholarly integrity to constitute potential research or publication misconduct. Allegations of misconduct are evaluated fairly, confidentially, and without presuming wrongdoing before the available evidence has been assessed.

Depending on the nature and seriousness of the concern, AJQR may:

  • Request explanations, original data, or supporting documentation from the authors;
  • Suspend consideration of a manuscript while concerns are investigated;
  • Reject a manuscript;
  • Publish a correction, retraction, or expression of concern;
  • Contact an author's institution, research ethics committee, funding organization, or other appropriate authority when warranted; or
  • Take other proportionate action necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Authors, reviewers, and editors involved in an investigation will normally be given an appropriate opportunity to respond to concerns relevant to them. AJQR follows relevant COPE guidance when investigating allegations of research or publication misconduct.

4. Ethical Approval and Ethical Oversight

Research involving human participants, animals, identifiable personal information, or other ethically sensitive materials must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international ethical standards. Where ethical review is required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriately constituted Institutional Review Board (IRB), Research Ethics Committee, or equivalent body before conducting the research.

The manuscript should identify the approving institution or committee and, where applicable, provide the approval or protocol number. If formal ethical approval was not required, or if an exemption or waiver was granted, authors should provide an appropriate statement explaining the basis for the exemption, waiver, or non-requirement. AJQR reserves the right to request documentation of ethical approval, exemption, informed consent, or other ethical safeguards when necessary.

5. Informed Consent

Authors must obtain informed consent from research participants where required by applicable ethical standards, institutional requirements, or law. Participation in research must be voluntary. Participants should be adequately informed about the nature and purpose of the research, foreseeable risks and benefits, confidentiality arrangements, and their right to decline or withdraw from participation where applicable. When participants cannot legally or practically provide informed consent, permission must be obtained from an appropriate parent, legal guardian, legally authorized representative, or other authorized individual in accordance with applicable ethical and legal requirements.

Where appropriate, participant assent should also be obtained in addition to legally required proxy consent. When an authorized ethics body has waived informed consent, or when consent is not applicable to the research design, this should be clearly explained in the manuscript.

6. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Identifiable Information

Researchers must protect participants' privacy, dignity, confidentiality, and personal information. Identifying information should not be published unless it is essential to the scholarly purpose of the article and appropriate consent for publication has been obtained.

Authors are responsible for appropriately anonymizing or de-identifying participant information where required and for securely managing confidential or sensitive research data. For case studies, photographs, audio or video recordings, quotations, or other material through which an individual could reasonably be identified, authors must obtain appropriate consent for publication when required.

7. Research Involving Vulnerable Populations

Research involving individuals or communities who may face increased risks of coercion, exploitation, discrimination, stigma, legal consequences, or other forms of harm requires heightened ethical consideration.

Depending on the research context, this may include children and minors, individuals with impaired decision-making capacity, refugees and displaced persons, incarcerated or institutionalized individuals, economically or socially marginalized communities, and other individuals or populations requiring additional safeguards.

Researchers must:

  • Ensure that participation is voluntary and free from coercion or undue influence;
  • Obtain appropriate informed consent and, where applicable, guardian consent and participant assent;
  • Minimize potential physical, psychological, emotional, social, cultural, economic, and legal harms;
  • Protect confidentiality and participant identities;
  • Respect relevant cultural, linguistic, religious, and community contexts;
  • Provide reasonable accommodations where necessary for meaningful participation; and
  • Comply with applicable ethical review and oversight requirements.

Researchers working with Indigenous peoples, culturally distinct communities, migrants, refugees, ethnic or linguistic minorities, or historically marginalized communities should use culturally appropriate and respectful research practices and avoid exploitation, stigmatization, or misrepresentation.

8. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must accurately reflect substantial scholarly contributions to the work. All individuals listed as authors must have made meaningful scholarly contributions to the research or manuscript, approved the final version submitted for publication, and agreed to be accountable for their contributions. Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged appropriately, with their permission where required.

Guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship are prohibited.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript and agreed to its submission. Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be explained and approved by all affected authors. AJQR may request supporting documentation and will evaluate authorship changes in accordance with relevant publication ethics guidance. Generative artificial intelligence systems and other non-human technologies cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for published work.

9. Competing Interests

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, professional, personal, institutional, academic, or other relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their work or judgment.

Authors must provide a competing interests declaration as part of the submission process. If no competing interests exist, this should be stated. Reviewers and editors who have a conflict that could compromise, or reasonably appear to compromise, their impartiality must disclose the conflict and, where appropriate, withdraw from handling or reviewing the manuscript.

10. Funding Disclosure

Authors must disclose all sources of financial support relevant to the research and publication of the manuscript. Where applicable, the role of funders in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or decision to submit the work for publication should be disclosed. If the funder had no role in these activities, authors may state this explicitly.

11. Data Availability, Sharing, and Reproducibility

AJQR supports transparency and responsible research data practices while recognizing the ethical and confidentiality considerations associated with qualitative research. Research articles should include a Data Availability Statement indicating whether and under what conditions the data or supporting materials underlying the findings are available. Where ethically and legally appropriate, authors are encouraged to deposit relevant data or supporting materials in a recognized institutional, disciplinary, or general-purpose repository and provide a persistent identifier or link.

AJQR recognizes that qualitative research data may contain sensitive, identifiable, culturally restricted, proprietary, or confidential information and therefore may not always be suitable for public sharing. Where data cannot be shared because of participant confidentiality, informed-consent conditions, ethical approval requirements, legal restrictions, cultural considerations, proprietary restrictions, or other legitimate reasons, authors should clearly state the restriction. Editors may request underlying data, documentation, coding information, or other relevant research materials when necessary to evaluate concerns regarding the reliability or integrity of submitted or published work.

12. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

Authors must comply with AJQR's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage Policy. Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies cannot replace human scholarly judgment, ethical responsibility, or author accountability. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, citations, data, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions contained in their manuscripts.

Generative AI systems cannot be credited as authors or cited as authoritative scholarly sources. Any use of generative AI that requires disclosure under AJQR's AI policy must be transparently reported. Reviewers and editors must protect manuscript confidentiality and must not upload manuscripts, reviewer reports, unpublished data, figures, tables, or other confidential submission materials to publicly accessible generative AI systems or unauthorized third-party tools. Any automated research-integrity screening used by AJQR supports, but does not replace, human editorial judgment.

13. Authors' Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for:

  • Submitting original work and appropriately acknowledging the work of others;
  • Ensuring the accuracy, authenticity, and integrity of their research and manuscript;
  • Complying with applicable ethical and institutional requirements;
  • Obtaining appropriate permissions for copyrighted or identifiable material;
  • Accurately reporting authorship and contributorship;
  • Disclosing competing interests and funding sources;
  • Ensuring that the manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal;
  • Participating appropriately in the peer-review process and responding to editorial and reviewer comments;
  • Providing supporting documentation when reasonably requested by the editors; and
  • Promptly notifying AJQR if they discover a significant error or ethical concern in their submitted or published work.

Authors are expected to cooperate with editorial investigations concerning the integrity of their work.

14. Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers play an essential role in maintaining the scholarly quality and integrity of AJQR.

Reviewers must:

  • Treat manuscripts and associated review materials as confidential;
  • Evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly, and professionally;
  • Provide constructive, evidence-based, and timely feedback;
  • Avoid personal, discriminatory, hostile, or inappropriate criticism;
  • Disclose actual or potential competing interests;
  • Decline assignments when they cannot provide an impartial or appropriately informed review;
  • Notify the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, or other ethical concerns;
  • Not use unpublished information obtained through peer review for personal, scholarly, financial, or professional advantage; and
  • Complete reviews within the requested timeframe whenever possible.

Reviewers must not share a manuscript with another person or invite another individual to participate in the review without prior authorization from the editorial office.

15. Editors' Responsibilities and Editorial Independence

Editors are responsible for protecting the integrity, independence, fairness, and confidentiality of AJQR's editorial process.

Editors must:

  • Base publication decisions on scholarly merit, originality, methodological rigor, ethical integrity, relevance, and contribution to the journal;
  • Ensure that manuscripts receive appropriate and impartial peer review;
  • Maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and reviewer information;
  • Select reviewers based on appropriate scholarly expertise;
  • Disclose and appropriately manage competing interests;
  • Avoid discrimination based on authors' nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political beliefs, institutional affiliation, geographic location, or other characteristics unrelated to scholarly merit;
  • Investigate credible ethical concerns appropriately;
  • Maintain appropriate separation between editorial decisions and financial considerations; and
  • Take appropriate action to correct the scholarly record when necessary.

The ability or willingness of an author to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) has no influence on peer review, editorial evaluation, acceptance, or rejection. Where an editor has an actual or potential conflict of interest regarding a manuscript, responsibility for the submission will be transferred to another qualified editor who can manage the manuscript independently.

16. Publisher's Responsibilities

The Center for Ethnic and Cultural Studies (CECS), as publisher of AJQR, is committed to supporting the journal's editorial independence and scholarly integrity. The publisher does not interfere with editorial decisions on the basis of commercial, financial, institutional, or personal considerations.

The publisher is responsible for supporting appropriate publishing infrastructure, maintaining journal policies and records, facilitating long-term preservation and access to published content, protecting the integrity of the scholarly record, and supporting editors in addressing ethical concerns. The publisher works with AJQR's editorial leadership to ensure that allegations of misconduct, corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, complaints, and other publication-integrity matters are handled appropriately and transparently.

17. Peer Review and Confidentiality

AJQR operates a double-anonymous (double-blind) peer-review process. Research manuscripts that pass initial editorial screening are normally evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise. Manuscripts, reviewer reports, correspondence, and other materials associated with peer review are confidential. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to respect the confidentiality and integrity of the peer-review process.

Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors, and authors are expected to prepare manuscripts in a manner that supports anonymous review. Manuscripts submitted for special issues are subject to the same ethical requirements, editorial standards, and peer-review procedures as regular submissions. Detailed procedures are provided in AJQR's Peer Review Policy.

18. Special Issues and Guest Editors

Special issues are subject to the same standards of scholarly quality, publication ethics, editorial oversight, and peer review as regular issues. The Editor-in-Chief retains overall responsibility and oversight for all special issues.

Guest Editors must comply with AJQR's policies on peer review, confidentiality, competing interests, research integrity, and editorial independence. Guest Editors must not handle manuscripts for which they have a conflict of interest. Manuscripts submitted by a Guest Editor or involving individuals with whom a Guest Editor has a significant conflict must be handled independently by another qualified editor. The appointment of Guest Editors and management of special issues are governed by AJQR's Special Issue and Guest Editor Policy.

19. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

AJQR is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scholarly record. A correction may be issued when an error is identified that affects part of a published article but does not invalidate its principal findings or conclusions. A retraction may be issued when there is reliable evidence that findings are seriously unreliable, research or publication misconduct has occurred, the article constitutes inappropriate duplicate publication, unethical research has been identified, or another serious circumstance warrants retraction. An Expression of Concern may be published when serious concerns have been raised about an article but an investigation is incomplete, inconclusive, or expected to require substantial time.

Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern will be clearly identified, permanently accessible, and appropriately linked to the original publication. AJQR follows relevant COPE guidance when correcting the published scholarly record.

20. Complaints and Appeals

AJQR provides authors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders with an appropriate mechanism for raising concerns about editorial procedures, peer review, publication ethics, or published content.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision when they believe that a significant procedural, factual, or ethical error occurred during peer review or editorial decision-making. Appeals must provide a clear and evidence-based explanation of the grounds for reconsideration. Disagreement with reviewer comments or an editorial decision alone does not necessarily constitute sufficient grounds for an appeal.

Complaints and appeals will be handled fairly and as independently as practicable. Where a complaint concerns an individual editor, the matter should be handled by another qualified editor or an appropriate representative of the journal or publisher who was not directly involved in the matter. The outcome of an appeal will be communicated to the corresponding author.

21. Intellectual Property and Permissions

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscripts comply with applicable copyright and intellectual-property requirements. Authors must obtain appropriate permission when reproducing copyrighted material for which permission is required, including figures, tables, photographs, substantial text extracts, questionnaires, instruments, or other third-party material. Authors must appropriately acknowledge the original source and comply with the terms of any applicable license or permission.

22. Post-Publication Discussion and Responsibilities

AJQR's responsibility for publication integrity continues after an article has been published. Authors must promptly inform the journal if they identify a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work and cooperate with AJQR in determining whether a correction, retraction, or other editorial action is necessary.Readers, researchers, institutions, and other parties may report credible concerns regarding published articles to the AJQR Editorial Office. Concerns will be evaluated according to their nature, available evidence, and relevant publication ethics guidance.

AJQR welcomes scholarly post-publication discussion, including appropriately submitted comments, responses, or correspondence concerning published research. Where appropriate, authors of the original article may be invited to respond. Post-publication discussion must be scholarly, evidence-based, respectful, and relevant to the published work.

23. Citation Practices

Authors must ensure that citations are relevant, accurate, and appropriate to the scholarly content of the manuscript. Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation, citation manipulation, citation cartels, or the inclusion of references solely for the purpose of artificially increasing citation metrics.

Editors and reviewers must not require authors to add citations to their own work, the journal, or other publications unless those references are genuinely relevant and academically justified. Suspected citation manipulation may be investigated as a publication ethics concern.

24. Disclaimer

The views, interpretations, opinions, and conclusions expressed in articles published by AJQR are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the journal, its editors, Editorial Board, or publisher. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy and integrity of their published work. AJQR and its publisher nevertheless retain responsibility for taking appropriate editorial action when credible concerns regarding the integrity of the scholarly record are identified.

Commitment to Publication Integrity

The American Journal of Qualitative Research (AJQR) is committed to protecting the integrity of qualitative scholarship throughout the entire publication lifecycle—from manuscript submission and peer review through publication and post-publication oversight. AJQR periodically reviews its publication ethics policies to maintain consistency with internationally recognized standards and evolving best practices in scholarly publishing.