Australian Journal of Psychology

Qualitative approaches are widely accepted and respected research methodologies in psychology, with entire journals devoted to the publication of qualitative studies. In psychology, qualitative methods include (but are not limited to) thematic analysis, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, qualitative content analysis, and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). More recently psychology researchers, and particularly those with a critical health psychology stance (see for example, the International Society of Critical Health Psychology: https://ischp.net/), have drawn upon methods such as story completion, photovoice, ethnography and other innovative methods of enquiry that push the boundaries of traditional psychological research.

Just as quantitative studies can be synthesised and appraised for the quality of the collective evidence, in systematic and umbrella reviews and meta-analyses, for instance, qualitative research can similarly be synthesised and assessed for quality. Qualitative Metasynthesis is a research method which identifies relevant primary studies, appraises their quality and offers a synthesis of findings to consolidate knowledge, offer new insights and develop recommendations to improve research and/or practice. A rigorous process is used, recognising the researchers’ subjectivity and position to the topic and the data, via reflexivity. Meta-ethnography, thematic synthesis and meta-aggregation are approaches often used in metasynthesis.

In this collection, entitled “Metasynthesis in Psychology: Past, Present, and Future Contributions to Research and Applied Practice”, we are seeking contributions which identify, appraise, and synthesise qualitative research to address questions relevant to psychological research and applied psychology. The manuscripts can be on any topic, although they are likely to have a clinical health psychology focus as metasyntheses are particularly useful in generating evidence-informed recommendations for research and clinical practice in this area. Manuscripts which contextualise past knowledge with current evidence, to provide suggestions for future research and practice, will be preferred.  Similarly, manuscripts offering innovations in metasynthesis will be welcomed.

Keywords: Metasynthesis; qualitative research; qualitative evidence synthesis; psychology

Preparing Your Paper

Submissions adhering to relevant reporting checklists are encouraged to support the rigour of manuscripts published in the journal (e.g., use of reporting guidelines should be considered such as PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, STROBE for observational studies, and CORE-Q for qualitative studies).

Article Types

Original article

• Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
• Should be no more than 6000 words
• Should contain a structured abstract of 200 words.
  • Please use the headings: Objective, Method, Results, and Conclusions
• Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

• Key Points: Please include 6 key points: 3 Key Points for “what is already known about this topic” and 3 Key Points for “what this topic adds” in your manuscript. Please place the Key Points after the key words in the manuscript, and write your Key Points with a practitioner audience in mind.
• Word count does not include tables or references

Review

• Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
• Should be no more than 6000 words
• Should contain a structured abstract of 200 words.
  • Please use the headings: Objective, Method, Results, and Conclusions
• Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

• Key Points: Please include 6 key points: 3 Key Points for “what is already known about this topic” and 3 Key Points for “what this topic adds” in your manuscript. Please place the Key Points after the key words in the manuscript, and write your Key Points with a practitioner audience in mind.
• Word count does not include tables or references

Brief report

• Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
• Should be no more than 1500 words
• Should contain a structured abstract of 200 words.
  • Please use the headings: Objective, Method, Results, and Conclusions
• Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

• Key Points: Please include 6 key points: 3 Key Points for “what is already known about this topic” and 3 Key Points for “what this topic adds” in your manuscript. Please place the Key Points after the key words in the manuscript, and write your Key Points with a practitioner audience in mind.
• Word count does not include tables or references

Registered Report

• Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract (optional); keywords; main text introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list)
• Should be no more than 6000 words
• Should contain a structured abstract of 200 words.
  • Please use the headings: Objective, Method, Results, and Conclusions
• Should contain between 3 and 6 keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.
• Key Points: Please include 6 key points: 3 Key Points for “what is already known about this topic” and 3 Key Points for “what this topic adds” in your manuscript. Please place the Key Points after the key words in the manuscript, and write your Key Points with a practitioner audience in mind.
• Word count does not include tables or references

Style Guidelines

Please refer to these quick style guidelines when preparing your paper, rather than any published articles or a sample copy.

Please use Australian spelling style consistently throughout your manuscript.

Please use double quotation marks, except where “a quotation is ‘within’ a quotation”.

Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.

Alt Text
This journal is now including Alt Text (alternative text), a short piece of text that can be attached to your figure to convey to readers the nature or contents of the image. It is typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make the object accessible to people that cannot read or see the object, due to a visual impairment or print disability.

Alt text will also be displayed in place of an image, if said image file cannot be loaded. Alt Text can also provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.

For more details on how to submit to Australian Journal of Psychology, please visit our Instructions for Authors page.

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article