American Educational Research Journal
The American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) is the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association, featuring articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of education and learning. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses that span the field of education research across all subfields and disciplines and all levels of analysis. It also encourages submissions across all levels of education throughout the life span and all forms of learning. AERJ welcomes submissions of the highest quality, reflecting a wide range of perspectives, topics, contexts, and methods, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work.
All issues of AERJ are available to browse online.
Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aerj
The American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) is the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association, featuring articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of education and learning. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses that span the field of education research across all subfields and disciplines and all levels of analysis. It also encourages submissions across all levels of education throughout the life span and all forms of learning. AERJ welcomes submissions of the highest quality, reflecting a wide range of perspectives, topics, contexts, and methods, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work.
| Motoko Akiba | Florida State University, USA |
| Conra D. Gist | University of Houston, USA |
| Fengfeng Ke | Florida State University, USA |
| Thomas Luschei | Claremont Graduate University, USA |
| Mariela A. Rodriguez | University of Texas at San Antonio, USA |
| Saran Stewart | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Emily Crawford-Rossi | University of Missouri, Columbia, USA |
| Chayla Haynes Davison | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Shengli Dong | Florida State University, USA |
| Alison Dover | California State University, Fullerton, USA |
| Timothy Ford | University of Oklahoma, USA |
| Nichole Garcia | Rutgers University, USA |
| Ingrid Gogolin | University of Hamburg, Germany |
| Amal Ibourk | Florida State University, USA |
| Saki Ikoma | American Institutes for Research, USA |
| Grace Liang | Kansas State University, USA |
| Jane C. Lo | Michigan State University, USA |
| Dario Maldonado | Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia |
| Guan Saw | Claremont Graduate University, USA |
| Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski | Florida State University, USA |
| Lolita Tabron | University of Denver, USA |
| Franklin A. Tuitt | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Yinying Wang | Georgia State University, USA |
| Alexander Wiseman | Texas Tech University, USA |
| Yanyun Yang | Florida State University, USA |
| Jai Bum Koo | Florida State University, USA |
| Mona M. Abo-Zena | University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA |
| Steven J. Amendum | University of Delaware, USA |
| Khalid Arar | Texas State University, USA |
| Noelle Arnold | Ohio State University, USA |
| Aydin Bal | University of Wisconsin, USA |
| Brendan Bartanen | University of Virginia , USA |
| Gary E. Bingham | Georgia State University, USA |
| Jennifer M. Bondy | Arizona State University, USA |
| Alex J. Bowers | Teachers College, Columbia University, USA |
| Melissa Braaten | University of Colorado Boulder, USA |
| Travis Bristol | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
| Todd Campbell | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Alejandro Carrasco | Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile |
| Chris Chang-Bacon | University of Virginia, USA |
| Jennifer Chiu | University of Virginia, USA |
| Anna Chmielewski | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Julie Cohen | University of Virginia, USA |
| Dylan Conger | George Washington University, USA |
| Kristy S. Cooper Stein | Michigan State University, USA |
| Maia Cucchiara | Temple University, USA |
| Thomas S. Dee | Stanford University, USA |
| Jannick Demanet | Ghent University, Belgium |
| Morgaen Donaldson | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Lisa Dorner | University of Missouri-Columbia, USA |
| Sarah Dryden-Peterson | Harvard University, USA |
| Alyssa H. Dunn | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Mustafa Yunus Eryaman | Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey |
| Abiola Farinde-Wu | University of Massachusetts Boston, USA |
| Rachel Fish | New York University, USA |
| Timothy G. Ford | University of Oklahoma, USA |
| Alexandra J. Freidus | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Jessica Gottlieb | Texas Tech University, USA |
| Michael Hines | Stanford University, USA |
| Lionel C. Howard | The George Washington University, USA |
| Francis M. Hult | University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA |
| Andrea G. Hunter | University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA |
| Ozan Jaquette | University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| David R. Johnson | Georgia State University, USA |
| Hosun Kang | University of California-Irvine, USA |
| Yasuko Kanno | Boston University, USA |
| Sarah S. Kavanagh | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Michael J. Kieffer | New York University, USA |
| Min Kyu Kim | Georgia State University, USA |
| Huan Kuang | Florida State University, USA |
| Se Woong Lee | University of Missouri, USA |
| David D. Liebowitz | University of Oregon, USA |
| Paco Martorell | School of Education, University of California, Davis, USA |
| Andrew McEachin | NWEA, USA |
| Chauncey B. Monte-Sano | University of Michigan, USA |
| Daniel Moraguez | Florida State University, USA |
| Susan B. Neuman | New York University, USA |
| Federick J. Ngo | University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA |
| Gregory J. Palardy | University of California, Riverside, USA |
| Deborah (Deb) Palmer | University of Colorado – Boulder, USA |
| Tara J. Parker | University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA |
| Judy Paulick | University of Virginia, USA |
| Donald J. Peurach | University of Michigan, USA |
| Ingrid Piller | Macquarie University Sydney and University of Hamburg, Germany |
| Ben Pogodzinski | Wayne State University, USA |
| Julie R. Posselt | University of Southern California, USA |
| Emilie Reagan | Claremont Graduate University, USA |
| Christopher Redding | University of Florida, USA |
| Ethan Ris | University of Nevada, USA |
| Andrea Rorrer | University of Utah, USA |
| Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Corey Savage | University of Glasgow, UK |
| Lauren Schudde | University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Amy Serafini | Auburn University, USA |
| Adela Soliz | Vanderbilt University, USA |
| Matthew G. Springer | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA |
| Sara Tolbert | University of Canterburry, New Zealand |
| Dianna R. Townsend | University of Nevada-Reno, USA |
| Paola Uccelli | Harvard University, USA |
| Rachel S. White | Old Dominion University, USA |
| Jim Wyckoff | University of Virginia, USA |
| Michelle D. Young | Loyola Marymount University, USA |
| Dzhambul (Jambul) Akkaziev | University of Missouri, USA |
| Angela Cox | Vanderbilt University, USA |
| Caroline Bartlett | Michigan State University, USA |
| Branden Becknell | Texas Tech University, USA |
| Scout Crimmins | University of Virginia, USA |
| Rahsaan Dawson | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Savannah Fissenden | Oklahoma State University, USA |
| Gizem Guner | University of Pittsburg, USA |
| Jabreon Jackson | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Sophia Piral Lee | University of Missouri System, USA |
| Tierra Mackie | Texas A&M University, USA |
| Mallory Mattimore-Malan | Michigan State University, USA |
| Kim Megyesi-Brem | Claremont Graduate University, USA |
| Anna Moyer | Vanderbilt University, USA |
| Sophie Munte | University of Hamburg & Macquarie University Sydney, Australia |
| Kelly Peña | Rutgers University, USA |
| Mez Perez | University of Michigan, USA |
| Qurrat ul Ain Rasheed | Georgia State University, USA |
| Kayla Reist | University of Virginia, USA |
| Juan Jose (JJ) Reyes | University of Missouri System, USA |
| Emmalea Salley | Texas Tech University, USA |
| kelly Schlabach | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Stephanie Simpson | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Kyle P. Smith | University of Michigan, USA |
| Amanda Spiegelberg | Claremont Graduate University, USA |
All manuscripts for AERJ should be submitted electronically at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aerj. For specific questions or inquiries, email AERJ@aera.net. Manuscript submissions by e-mail are not accepted.
Publication Standards
Researchers submitting manuscripts should consult the Standards for Reporting on Research in AERA Publications and the Ethical Standards of the American Educational Research Association. Submitting authors will be asked to confirm that the manuscript has been submitted solely to this journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere. Accepted authors will be asked to assign copyright to AERA in return for which AERA grants several rights to authors.
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Style:
All submissions should follow APA style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, 2009).
Length:
Manuscripts must run between 20 and 50 pages, including all tables, figures, notes, and references, typed for 8½" x 11" paper with 1" margins on all sides, double-spaced using 12-point type. They should be in MS Word, WordPerfect or RTF format. Any supplemental files should also be in Microsoft Word, RTF, WordPerfect, or Excel format. PDFs are not acceptable.
Subheads should be used at reasonable intervals to break the monotony of text. Words and symbols to be italicized must be clearly indicated, by either italic type or underlining. Abbreviations and acronyms should be spelled out at first mention unless found as entries in their abbreviated form in Merriam-Webster’s Tenth Collegiate Dictionary (e.g., “IQ” needs no explanation). Pages should be numbered consecutively.
Title page file:
Supply complete contact information for all authors on a separate title page file: Name, affiliation, complete street address, e-mail address, fax, phone numbers. The corresponding author, who will be handling the correspondence with the editor, clearing galleys, and working with the association’s publications, should be clearly indicated.
Author identification:
Every effort should be made to ensure that submission material outside of the title page file contains no clues as to author identity. Footnotes containing information pertaining to the identity of the author or institutional affiliation should be on separate pages. The complete title of the article and the name of the author(s) should be typed only on the title page file to ensure anonymity in the review process. Subsequent pages should have no author names, but may carry a short title at the top. Information in text, citations, references, or footnotes that would identify the author should be masked from the manuscript file. These may be reinserted in the final draft. In addition, the author's name should be removed from the document's Properties, which in Microsoft Word is found in the File menu. When submitting a revised version of a manuscript, please be sure to submit a blind version of your response letter detailing changes made to the manuscript as this is letter can be accessed by reviewers.
Wherever the author name appears as a citation, you must omit the author's name and replace it with the word "Author" and the year of citation, e.g., "Author, 2007." This rule should also be followed when any co-authors of the manuscript are cited, e.g., "Authors, 2007."
“Author” or “Authors” should be moved to the first position in the parentheses when they are cited in the text. Example: “Students’ disengagement has increasingly been linked to the quality of their classroom settings (Authors, 2015; Marks, 2000; Newmann, Wehlage, & Lamborn,1992; Wentzel, 1998).”
This rule also applies to the reference section. The author’s references are to be moved to the “top” of the reference list and shown with the word “Author(s)” and year only, e.g., “Author, 2005.” Do not show any additional information such as, name of publication, etc. Example in reference section:
Author, 2015
Authors, 2011
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74, 59–109.
Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 915–945
Abstract and keywords:
All manuscripts should include an abstract of 100–120 words. Please also include a few keywords, the terms that researchers will use to find your article in indexes and databases. (Such a term may contain more than one word.) Articles in AERA journals typically list 3 to 5 keywords.
Notes and references:
Notes are for explanations or amplifications of textual material. They are distracting to readers and expensive to set and should be avoided whenever possible. They should be typed as normal text at the end of the text section of the manuscript rather than as part of the footnote or endnote feature of a computer program and should be numbered consecutively throughout the article.
A reference list contains only references that are cited in the text. Its accuracy and completeness are the responsibility of the author(s). Reference each publicly available identifier (DOI), a handle, or a uniform resource name (URN). If necessary, this last element may be replaced by a web address and an access date.
Personal communications (letters, memos, telephone conversations) are cited in the text after the name with as exact a date as possible.
Tables, figures, and illustrations:
The purpose of tables and figures is to present data to the reader in a clear and unambiguous manner. The author should not describe the data in the text in such detail that illustration or text is redundant.
Figures and tables should be keyed to the text. Tables should each be typed on a separate sheet and attached at the end of the manuscript (after the references). Tables will be typeset.
Figure captions should be typed on a separate sheet (and should not appear in full on the original figures). One high-quality, camera-ready version or final electronic version of each figure must be submitted with the manuscript that is to be typeset, and photocopies may be submitted with the additional copies of the manuscript.
See also the section below regarding permission to reproduce copyrighted material. Once an article has been accepted, all tables and figures should be e-mailed to the editors along with the manuscript.
Appendices
Appendices can only appear in the copyedited and typeset PDF if, with their inclusion, the article is still within the maximum page limit of 50 pages (or about 17,500 words total). If the inclusion of appendices would make the article longer than 17,500 words, they can appear instead as online supplementary files.
Please make sure to clearly label any online-only files with "online" in the file name.
Review Criteria
As you prepare your paper, you might take a look at the criteria under which it will be reviewed. See Reviewer Guidelines.
How to Get Help With the Quality of English in Your Submission
Authors who would like to refine the use of English in their manuscripts might consider using the services of a professional English-language editing company. We highlight some of these companies at http://www.sagepub.com/journalgateway/engLang.htm.
Please be aware that SAGE has no affiliation with these companies and makes no endorsement of them. An author's use of these services in no way guarantees that his or her submission will ultimately be accepted. Any arrangement an author enters into will be exclusively between the author and the particular company, and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.
Copyright Information
Permission to reproduce your own previously published material:
No written or oral permission is necessary to reproduce a table, a figure, or an excerpt of fewer than 500 words from this journal, or to make photocopies for classroom use. Authors are granted permission, without fee, to photocopy their own material or make printouts from the final pdf of their article. Copies must include a full and accurate bibliographic citation and the following credit line: “Copyright [year] by the American Educational Research Association; reproduced with permission from the publisher.” Written permission must be obtained to reproduce or reprint material in circumstances other than those just described. Please go to http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav for further information on policies and fees.
Permission to submit material for which you do not own copyright:
Authors who wish to use material, such as figures or tables, for which they do not own the copyright must obtain written permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and submit it along with their manuscript. (However, no written or oral permission is necessary to reproduce a table, a figure, or an excerpt of fewer than 500 words from an AERA journal.)
Copyright transfer agreements for accepted works with more than one author:
This journal uses a transfer of copyright agreement that requires just one author (the corresponding author) to sign on behalf of all authors. Please identify the corresponding author for your work when submitting your manuscript for review. The corresponding author will be responsible for the following:
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Ensuring that all authors are identified on the copyright agreement, and notifying the editorial office of any changes in the authorship.
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Securing written permission (by letter or e-mail) from each co-author to sign the copyright agreement on the co-author’s behalf.
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Warranting and indemnifying the journal owner and publisher on behalf of all co-authors. Although such instances are very rare, you should be aware that in the event that a co-author has included content in his or her portion of the article that infringes the copyright of another or is otherwise in violation of any other warranty listed in the agreement, you will be the sole author indemnifying the publisher and the editor of the journal against such violation.
Please contact AERA if you have questions or if you prefer to use a copyright agreement for all coauthors to sign.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Comments
The Publications Committee welcomes comments and suggestions from authors. Please send these to the Publications Committee in care of the AERA central office.
Right of Reply
The right-of-reply policy encourages comments on articles recently published in an AERA journal. Such comments are subject to editorial review and decision. If the comment is accepted for publication, the editor shall inform the author of the original article. If the author submits a reply to the comment, the reply is also subject to editorial review and decision. The editor may allot a specific amount of journal space for the comment (ordinarily about 1,500 words) and for the reply (ordinarily about 750 words). The reply may appear in the same issue as the comment or in a later one.
Grievances
Authors who believe that their manuscripts were not reviewed in a careful or timely manner and in accordance with AERA procedures should call the matter to the attention of the Association’s executive officer or president.
SAGE Choice and Open Access
If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to nonsubscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in SAGE Choice, subject to payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let SAGE know directly if you are choosing SAGE Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit SAGE Choice. For more information on open access options and compliance at SAGE, including self author archiving deposits (green open access) visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.