Abstract
We are excited to bring together in this 2nd issue of volume 25 a set of articles related to research quality in our field. By sharing these, we hope to promote dialogue among those of us who engage in research, and also to educate consumers of research regarding these diverse aspects of research quality.
Our issue begins with the announcement of a new position statement on quantitative manuscripts. The article is entitled, “Welcoming Quality in Non-Significance and Replication Work, but moving beyond the p-value: Announcing New Editorial Policies for Quantitative Research in JOAA.” The new policies are the result of a growing concern over the replicability of research findings in the social sciences. As outlined in the article, the unfortunate reality is that some of the practices and incentives of academic research in our discipline do not facilitate the emergence of reliable scientific findings. We encourage our readers to read the recent special issue of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts guest edited by Jonathan Plucker that was devoted to this topic.
Our next manuscript is entitled, “Understanding the Experiences of Gifted Education Teachers and Fidelity of Implementation in Rural Schools” by Amy Azano, Carolyn Callahan, Tracy Missett, and Marquerite Brunner. Fidelity of implementation is under-studied (and likely also under-reported) in the context of advanced academics research, yet also vital to the emergence of reliable research-based findings in education. Azano and colleagues’ findings suggest that rural teachers may face additional challenges, beyond those faced by teachers in other settings, in seeking to implement research-based curricula in their classrooms.
Azano and her colleagues’ article precedes “An Investigation of Elementary Teachers’ Use of Follow-Up Questions for Students at Different Reading Levels” by Cindy Gilson, Catherine Little, Ashley Ruegg, and Micah Bruce-Davis. Gilson and her co-authors identify types of questioning strategies that may aid teachers in their efforts to promote higher-order thinking in literacy among their students.
Our last manuscript in this issue is by Kelly Park, Randolph Wimmer, and Vera Caine, entitled “The Experiences of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Participants: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research.” This study is the first systematic review to be published in JoAA during our tenure. We are particularly excited to include this article in the same issue as our new position statement because we are strong proponents of research synthesis and meta-analysis. This study describes five common themes contained in the twenty relevant articles that met the study’s inclusion criteria and provides excellent guidance for future research.
Looking ahead to the near future, by the time you read this we likely will have held our annual editorial board meeting at the American Educational Research Association’s annual convention, held this year in Philadelphia, PA. If you are interested in reading a copy of the journal’s annual report, please let us know and we will send you a copy. To follow this issue’s revised statement about quantitative research, we plan to deliberate at the board meeting the possibility of also changing the journal’s policies on how authors report data in qualitative studies. Watch for more details on this later this year.
Finally, we are excited to look forward to issue 25(3) of JoAA, which will be the special issue focusing on STEM that is being edited by associate editor Jill Adelson and her colleagues Scott Chamberlin and Eric Mann. Authors are making final revisions to their STEM manuscripts as we write this introduction.