The publishing processes applied in the International Journal of Exercise Psychology provide the basis for the development and dissemination of information in an impartial and respectable manner. The processes applied in this direction are directly reflected in the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions supporting the authors. Refereed studies are the studies that embody and support the scientific method. At this point, it is important that all stakeholders of the process (authors, readers and researchers, publishers, referees, and editors) comply with standards for ethical principles. All stakeholders within the scope of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology publication ethics are expected to bear the following ethical responsibilities.

The following ethical duties and responsibilities have been prepared as open access, taking into account guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The author (s) who submitted a study to the International Journal of Exercise Psychology is expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• The works submitted by the author (s) are expected to be original. If the author (s) benefit from other studies or use other studies, they must cite and/or cite completely and accurately.

• Persons who do not contribute to the content intellectually in the creation of the study should not be specified as a writer.

• The situations and relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest, if any, should be explained.

• The raw data regarding the articles can be requested from the author (s) within the framework of the evaluation processes; in such a case, the author (s) must be ready to present the expected data and information to the editorial board and the scientific board.

• The author (s) must have the document showing that they have the right to use the data used, the necessary permissions related to research/analysis, or that the experimental subjects have consented.

• In the event that the author (s) notices an error or error related to his published, early-view, or evaluation phase, there is an obligation to inform the editor of the journal or the publisher to cooperate with the editor in correction or withdrawal.

• Authors cannot keep their works in the process of application of more than one journal at the same time. Each application can be started following the completion of the previous application.

• The study published in another journal cannot be sent to the International Journal of Exercise Psychology.

• Changing author responsibilities (such as adding authors, changing author order, or removing authors) cannot be offered for a study whose evaluation process has started.

The editor and field editors of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology should have the following ethical duties and responsibilities based on the "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" guidelines published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as open access:

Editors are responsible for every publication published in the International Journal of Exercise Psychology. In the context of this responsibility, editors have the following roles and obligations:

• Making efforts to meet the information needs of readers and writers,

• Continuous development of the journal,

• To carry out the processes to improve the quality of the works published in the journal,

• Supporting freedom of thought,

• Ensuring academic integrity,

• Continuing work processes without compromising intellectual property rights and ethical standards,

• Show clarity and transparency in terms of publication on issues requiring correction and explanation.

Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills, and expectations of all readers, researchers, and practitioners. They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to the literature and are original. Moreover, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:

• Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording, and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.

• Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of the publication into the pre-review process unless there are serious problems with the study.

• Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.

• New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.

• “Blind Review and Review Process” must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.

• Editors must publish an “Authors Guide” that is comprehensive enough to answer queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.

• Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.

Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:

• choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.

• provide the information and guidance reviewers may need during the review process.

• observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.

• keep the identities of reviewers confidential in blind review.

• encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.

• evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.

• develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.

• take necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.

• prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.

• make effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.

Editors must make sure that the members of the editorial board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and must inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors must also train new members of the editorial board and provide the information they need. Moreover, editors must

• ensure that the members of the editorial board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.

• select the new members of the editorial board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.

• send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the editorial board members.

• regularly communicate with the editorial board.

• arrange regular meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.

The relationship between the editors and publisher is based on the principle of the independence of editors. All the decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the owner of the journal as required by the agreement made between editors and publisher.

Editors are obliged to comply with the policies of “Blind Review and Process” stated in the journal's publication policies. Therefore, the editors ensure that each manuscript is reviewed in an unbiased, fair, and timely manner.

Editors must make sure that articles in the journal are published in accordance with the publication policies of the journal and international standards.

Editors are supposed to protect the personal information related to the subjects or visuals in the studies being reviewed and to reject the study if there is no documentation of the subject's consent. Furthermore, editors are supposed to protect the personal information of the authors, reviewers, and readers.

Evaluation of all studies with "Blind Referee" directly affects the quality of publication. This process provides confidence with the objective and independent evaluation of the publication. The International Journal of Exercise Psychology evaluation process is carried out with the principle of double-blind refereeing. The referees cannot directly contact the authors. The reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. In this process, the review forms and the referee comments on the full texts are sent to the author (s) through the editor. In this context, the referees evaluating the study for the International Journal of Exercise Psychology are expected to have the following ethical responsibilities:

Reviewers must

• agree to review only in their subject of expertise.

• review in an unbiased and confidential manner.

• inform the editor of the journal if they think that they encounter a conflict of interests and decline to review the manuscript during the review process.

• dispose of the manuscripts they have reviewed in accordance with the principle of confidentiality after the review process. Reviewers can use the final versions of the manuscripts they have reviewed only after publication.

• review the manuscript objectively and only in terms of its content and ensure that nationality, gender, religious and political beliefs, and economic apprehension do not influence the review.

• review the manuscript in a constructive and kind tone, and avoid making personal comments, including hostility, slander, and insult.

• review the manuscript they have agreed to review on time and in accordance with the ethical rules stated above.

• If you encounter any of the above ethical responsibilities and unethical behavior or content in the International Journal of Exercise Psychology, please report to egzersizpsikolojisi@gmail.com via email.

The following should be observed under the code of ethics.

• An ethics committee approval must be obtained for research conducted in all disciplines including social sciences and for clinical and experimental studies on humans and animals,

• requiring ethical committee decision, and this approval should be stated and documented in the article.

• It should be indicated in the journal and/or web page under a separate heading referring to national and international standards.

• Information on the ethical rules under separate headings should be provided under this heading for the peer-reviewers, authors, and editors.

• It should be stated that the articles comply with Research and Publication Ethics.

• Reference to international standards and institutions should be made. For example, scientific articles sent to journals should take into account the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the International Standards for Editors and Authors of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

• In studies requiring ethical committee permission, information about the permission (board name, date, and issue number) should be included in the method section and on the first/last page of the article.

• For the scales used in data collection, the permission of the scale owner should be obtained and declared in the article.

• Copyright regulations must be observed for the ideas and works of art used.

Editors are supposed to take precautions against possible abuse and malpractice. They must conduct investigations meticulously and objectively in determining and evaluating complaints about such situations. They must also share the results of the investigation.

Editors must make sure that the mistakes, inconsistencies, or misdirections in studies are corrected quickly.

Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in the journal and the rights of the journal and author(s) in cases where these rights are violated. Also, editors must take the necessary precautions in order to prevent the content of all published articles from violating the intellectual property rights of other publications.

• pay attention to the convincing criticism about studies published in the journal and must have a constructive attitude towards such criticism.

• grant the right of reply to the author(s) of the criticized study.

• do not ignore or exclude the study that includes negative results.

Editors must examine the complaints from authors, reviewers, or readers and respond to them in an explanatory and enlightening manner.

Political and Economic Apprehensions

Neither the owner of the journal, the publisher, nor any other political or economic factor can influence the independent decision-making of the editors.

Editors, acknowledging that there may be conflicting interests between reviewers and other editors, guarantee that the publication process of the manuscripts will be completed in an independent and unbiased manner.

Blind review is a method used to make sure scientific publications are produced with the highest quality. This method is fundamental to the objective review of scientific studies and is preferred by many scientific journals. Reviewer views are determinant in the publication quality of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology. The journal employs double-blind reviewing. For the publication of articles, two positive reports are required. All manuscripts submitted to the International Journal of Exercise Psychology are blind reviewed according to the steps below:

International Journal of Exercise Psychology uses the double-blind review method in the review process of all studies. In this method the identities of the authors and reviewers are confidential.

The studies submitted to the International Journal of Exercise Psychology are reviewed by editors first. At this stage, the studies that are not related to the journal's aim and scope, are weak in terms of language and wording, lack originality, contain critical scientific mistakes, and do not meet the publishing criteria are rejected. The authors of such studies are informed in a month following the submission date. The studies deemed acceptable, on the other hand, are submitted to a member of the editorial board related to the subject of study that the work focuses on.

In the pre-review process, an expert member of the editorial board evaluates the introduction and literature, method, findings, results, and discussion parts of the studies in detail with respect to the publishing policies and scope of the journal as well as originality. As a result of this process, those studies that are found unacceptable are returned within four weeks. The studies that are deemed appropriate are assigned to reviewers.

Reviewers are assigned according to the content of the studies and their subject of expertise. The expert member of the editorial board who reviews the study recommends two reviewers, based on their subject of expertise, from the reviewer pool of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology or a new reviewer related to the subject of study addressed in the article. The recommendations are then evaluated by the editors, and the studies are passed on to the reviewers, who are obligated to guarantee that they will not share any document or detail about the study they review.

In general, the reviewer reports are based on the originality of the studies, methods, ethical considerations, consistent presentation of the findings and results, and analysis of the studies with respect to literature. This evaluation is done according to the following:

1. Introduction and literature: the reviewer report includes views about the presentation and aims of the problem addressed in the study, the importance of the topic, the scope of the related literature, and the originality and topicality of the study.

2. Method: the reviewer report includes views about the appropriateness of the research method, sample choice and properties, validity and reliability issues, as well as data collection and data analysis.

3. Results: the reviewer report includes views about the presentation of the findings obtained through the method, the accuracy of the analysis methods, the consistency of the aims and findings of the study, the presentation of tables, diagrams, and visuals that are needed, and the conceptual evaluation of the scales.

4. Evaluation and discussion: the reviewer report includes views about discussions based on findings, suitability with the research question(s) and hypothesis, generalizability, and applicability.

5. Conclusion and suggestions: the reviewer report includes views about the contribution to literature, recommendations for future studies, and suggestions about applications in the field.

6. Style and wording: the reviewer report includes views about whether the title comprises the content of the study, whether the Turkish language is used accurately, and whether journal writing rules (see Footnotes and Bibliography section) rules are observed in giving references and in-text references in parallel with the language of the full text.

7. Overall evaluation: the reviewer report includes views about the originality of the study as a whole and the contribution it makes to the literature and applications.

In the review process, reviewers are not expected to redact the study according to its galley features.

Reviewers are given 6 weeks for review. It is compulsory for the authors to complete the editing of their work within 1 month according to the rules stated in the "editing manual". Reviewers may ask for multiple edits of a study if they deem it necessary.

The editors evaluate the review by reviewers within 2 weeks at the latest, and as a result of this evaluation, the editors reach the final decision regarding the study.

Based on the review done by the reviewers, editors report the views of the editorial board to the author(s) in a week at the latest along with the suggestions made by the reviewers. In this process, the studies that are not accepted for publication are returned without request for plagiarism detection. The final decision about the accepted studies is made based on the results of the plagiarism detection report.

It is anticipated that the publication review process of the studies submitted to the International Journal of Exercise Psychology will be completed in 3 months. However, the period during which editors or reviewers ask the author(s) to do editing and the author(s) complete the editing is not included in this time frame.

International Journal of Exercise Psychology values holistic and exhaustive publishing for researchers and libraries and acknowledges that this can be realized by publishing reliable and original research articles. In the case that a study or article will be withdrawn, the author(s) and the editorial board will share some responsibilities as required by the publishing policies of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology. These responsibilities are listed below:

If the author(s) finds a mistake in their study that is unpublished or in the early release or review process, they are obliged to cooperate with the editor of the journal during the withdrawal process.

The author(s) who wants to withdraw their study, which is in the review process, is obliged to fill in the "Article Withdrawal Form", scan it with signature(s) on it, and send the form via e-mail to the editorial board at egzersizpsikolojisi@gmail.com. The editorial board will return to the author(s) within a week, evaluating the request for withdrawal. Authors cannot submit their manuscript to another journal for review unless the withdrawal request is approved by the editorial board.

The editorial board of the International Journal of Exercise Psychology holds the responsibility of starting an investigation about a study if a suspicion arises that the study includes plagiarism and/or it has copyright issues.

If the editorial board detects a breach of copyright or plagiarism for the manuscripts in the review process, they retract the study from review and cancel its review process by sending a detailed document to the author(s) showing what was detected and where in the study.

If the editorial board detects a breach of copyright or plagiarism for the articles published in an issue or in early release, the retraction and reporting procedures are applied according to the statements indicated below in 1 week at the latest:

1. The study that is detected to have plagiarism is labeled as "Retraction:" in the electronic environment.

2. Instead of the Abstract and Full Text, the reasons why the study has been retracted, detailed evidence, and the statements (if any) of the affiliated institution about the issue are published electronically.

3. The study is announced as "Retraction" on the main page of the journal's web page.

4. The study is included in the contents of the first issue of the journal to be published after the date of retraction as "Retraction: Article Title," and from its first page onwards, the reasons why it has been retracted and the original citations are shared with the public and researchers.

5. The institutions that the author(s) is affiliated with are informed about the retraction.

6. The retraction reports indicated above are sent to the institutions where the journal is indexed so that they are recorded in index directories and catalogs.

In addition, the editorial board may suggest that the work author (s) who have been subjected to ethical violations to the publishing houses or editorial boards to ensure or withdraw the validity and reliability of the published works.

The author(s) retains the right to appeal against the reports produced by the editorial and scientific boards upon the completion of the review process at the International Journal of Exercise Psychology. The author(s) should send their reasons for appeal in a scientific manner and by showing references to egzersizpsikolojisi@gmail.com The appeal will be examined by the editorial board within one month the latest (the field editor and reviewers of the manuscript may be asked to share their opinions about the appeal) and the author(s) will be informed of any positive or negative result. If the result is positive, the editorial board assigns new reviewers who have expertise in the subject of the manuscript and re-starts the review process.

In addition to authors' responsibilities, there are ethical violations that must be considered, which are critical for maintaining the reliability of scientific research and academic integrity. Major ethical violations include:
1. Fabrication: Creating or using non-existent data in scientific research. This is an ethical violation that severely undermines the credibility of the research.
2. Falsification: Altering research records or data, misrepresenting unused devices or materials as used, or shaping research outcomes to benefit sponsors or institutions falls under this violation. Falsification involves intentionally misleading presentation of research results.
3. Redundant Publication: Presenting a previously published work as new research for academic appointments or promotions is considered redundant publication and an ethical violation. Such publications, which contribute to the growth of scientific output through repetition, undermine academic integrity.
4. Salami Slicing: Dividing a research study’s results into fragments and publishing them as separate studies, and presenting these as distinct publications in academic career processes, constitutes an ethical violation. This practice can lead to misdirection of scientific findings.
5. Unfair Authorship: Including individuals who have not actively contributed to the work as authors, removing contributors from the authorship list, altering the order of authors unfairly, or adding names based on personal influence constitutes unfair authorship. Neglecting fair contribution in scientific research leads to such ethical violations.

Addressing Research Misconduct Allegations
International Journal of Exercise Psychology takes allegations of research misconduct seriously and follows the guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for resolving such issues. In accordance with COPE's Ethical Toolkit for Successful Publishing, all allegations of research misconduct are assessed in a transparent, fair, and impartial manner.
The following processes are followed in addressing allegations:
1. Pre-Assessment: Editors review the allegations of misconduct and consider any supporting documents to conduct a preliminary assessment. If the allegation is based on sufficient evidence, a formal investigation is promptly initiated.
2. Investigation Process: In line with COPE's ethical principles, necessary investigation procedures are carried out. If needed, additional information is requested from relevant parties, and all stages of the research are reviewed.
3. Decision Making: Based on the investigation outcome, a final decision is made on whether misconduct has occurred. If misconduct is detected, the relevant article may be retracted, a correction may be published, or restrictions may be imposed on the author’s future publications.
4. Communication: All parties involved (author, reviewer, institution, etc.) are informed about the process, and the final outcome is communicated in writing.
Our journal is committed to conducting an independent, impartial, and fair process in resolving research misconduct allegations.