Guidelines for Reviewers

GUIDELINES FOR PEER REVIEWERS

  • The peer review process in the Investigación en Educación Médica (Medical Education Research) Journal has the following objectives:
    - To collaborate with the Editor in taking decisions on the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts submitted to the Journal, in order to maintain an appropriate level of scientific quality in its contents.
    - To assist or advise the authors in areas of their manuscript that may be lead to an improvement, providing them with constructive feedback.

  • Quality – We request your opinion and advice on three aspects of the article: 
  1. Originality: does the work add anything to that which is already published in the literature of the discipline? If so, what does it add?
  2. Educational importance: is the work of interest for daily educational practice of the readers of the Journal? Could it have an impact on educational practices?
  3. Methodological rigour: it covers aspects such as a clear research question, suitable methodology for the question, presentation of results and conclusions.
  • Confidentiality – All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are Please do not discuss the article or its evaluation with anyone else. If you wish to receive comments from another colleague, please request this through the Editorial Office.

  • Conflicts of interests – If there is any conflict of interests, real or potential, that could bias your evaluation of the manuscript, it must be declared to the A conflict of interests exists when the professional judgement of a primary interest (such as the validity of a research work) may be influenced by secondary interests (financial gain, inter-personal relationships, or professional rivalry).

  • The reviewer’s report – The report will be read by authors, editors, and other reviewers. We will send your report to the author and the rest of the reviewers of the manuscript will also read it when the final editorial decision is For this reason we ask that you not to make comments that you do not wish them to see. The “Confidential Comments to the Editor” section is for this specific purpose, and ideally should only be used in very unusual circumstances or conflicts of interests.

    We have structured the format of the reviewer’s report in order to ask for your opinion on specific aspects of the manuscript. It is not necessary to complete all or any of them if they are not relevant, or you do not have any particular comment to make on any aspect of the manuscript, please use these sections as a guide in order to consider the type of information that is requested.

    Please be objective and constructive in the writing of your reviewer’s report, it could be useful to imagine that you are giving “face to face” feedback to the authors. The formative evaluation must be an important component of the publication process.

  • Please do not indicate your opinion on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript in the Comments for the This information goes in a specific section of your report addressed to the Editor.

  • Please send your review within a period of no more than 21 days, your will be sent reminders by e-mail. If you feel you cannot fulfil the obligation in this period, it is recommended that you do not accept the invitation from the If you accept the invitation, but due to unforeseen circumstances you foresee a delay in the delivery, please inform the editor in order to assign the manuscript to another reviewer.

  • If you have any question about your role as a reviewer, how the review process functions, or you would like to clarify anything about the manuscript, please contact the Journal Editorial Office. 

  • When a final decision is made on the manuscript, we will notify you of the result by e-mail, attaching the reports of the other reviewers if these are available.

  • The names of all the reviewers will be published in the last issue of the year as an acknowledgement of their work. 
  • If you are concerned about inappropriate scientific conduct, serious ethical problems or detection of conflicts of interests, we ask that you communicate them confidentially to the Editor of the Journal..

Evaluation sections of a manuscript:

1. Overall evaluation and general comments – What do you consider are the key messages of the article? Did you learn anything on reading it that you consider important for the field of medical education in accordance with the state of the art? Is the article original?

2. Title and Abstract – They are important elements of the article, since they will determine whether or not a potential reader chooses to read the full article. Can a clear image of why the study was carried out, the methodological details, the key findings and the implications of the study be obtained from the title and the abstract? Would you recommend any changes to the authors?

3. Introduction and conceptual framework – Does the article establish a defined conceptual framework, describing what is already known on the topic and identifying gaps in the literature that this work is attempting to fill? Is it clear that the work is original and relevant for a wide national and /or international audience? Is the purpose of the study clear through the inclusion of the research question or hypothesis?

4. Methodological rigour – Are the design of the study and the methods of data collection (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) as such that another investigator could replicate the study if he/she wishes to? Are the methods appropriate to the research question described? Is the analysis of the data appropriate for the problem that the authors describe and with the data available?

5. Results – Are the results presented in a clear manner? Are they consistent with the methods used and with the research question of the study? Do they provide a clear response to the research question?

6. Discussion and Conclusions – Are the conclusions clearly defined? Are the discussion and conclusions related to the conceptual framework presented in the introduction? Are the conclusions appropriate for the methods used and the results found? What does the study add to the body of existing knowledge on the subject? Is it significant and important? Are the limitations in the design of the study and its results identified and discussed? 

7. Clarity, length, and ethical aspects – Is the article well written? Have the ethical aspects of the study been discussed and clarified? Is there institutional Is the length of the article appropriate for the message it contains? Is there any reason to be concerned about conflicts of interests or a duplicate publication? Comments may be included about any aspects of the writing or spelling errors, but remember that the correction of style is not your responsibility.

8. Confidential comments to the Editor – Remember that the priority is to give constructive feedback (formative evaluation) to the Is there anything that you consider that the Editor should know and is not included in the Comments to the authors?

9. Conflicts of interests – If you think that you have a conflict of interests that could interfere with the review of this manuscript, or that you are not technically qualified to judge any of its aspects (e.g., if the work uses the item response theory, and you are not familiar with this methodology), please let the Editor know.

10. Use of Artificial Intelligence. 

  • Reviewers must maintain absolute confidentiality regarding assigned manuscripts. Regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, reviewers are required to explicitly disclose to the editor if they have utilized AI-assisted technology to generate or process any part of their review report. It is imperative to note that uploading unpublished manuscripts into public or open-access AI tools that do not guarantee data privacy and security is strictly prohibited. The final responsibility for the content, judgment, and recommendations of the review rests exclusively with the human reviewer, who must ensure that the use of such tools does not introduce bias or compromise the integrity of the evaluation process.