Scholarly Productivity of Editorial Board Members of Three American Counseling and Counseling Psychology Journals

Abstract

The scholarly journals in professional and scientific fields serve the function of communicating new knowledge and informed discourse on the major issues affecting the field of counseling, and editorial board members (EBMs) serve as gatekeepers of what information will be communicated. The ability of EBMs to make sound judgments directly affects the quality of research and scholarship published. This study analyzed one important EBM qualification, the scholarly productivity of the editorial board members of three major American counseling journals (The Counseling Psychologist [TCP], the Journal of Counseling Psychology [JCP], and the Journal of Counseling and Development [JCD]). An analysis of the productivity rates of editorial board members on these journals was conducted using the PsycINFO database. The results indicated that editorial board members of JCP have significantly more experience publishing than members of TCP and JCD. The differential publication rates of editorial board members suggest that these three journals place different emphasis on scholarly productivity as part of their selection criteria for editorial board membership and may reflect that the three journals have different missions and serve different clientele. These findings have implications, not only for the profession 1 This article is dedicated to our esteemed colleague, Stephen G. Weinrach, who died after a long and courageous battle with leukemia on April 24, 2004. This article was the last that Steve was working on prior to his death. It was his brainchild. The contributions that Steve made to the counseling profession over the years are inestimable. He was truly through his numerous writings and professional association activities the "conscience of the couseling profession." He is dearly missed.

Measuring individual research productivity: A review and development of the integrated research productivity index.

“…The correlation of institutional research productivity and the ranking in U.S. News and World Report ranged from .57 to .64. In another study, Weinrach, Thomas, Pruett, and Chan (2006) used PsycINFO to calculate the total number of articles published by editorial board members in three counseling journals: The Counseling Psychologist ( TCP ), the Journal of Counseling Psychology ( JCP ), and the Journal of Counseling and Development ( JCD ). Board members of JCP had the highest scores, followed by those of TCP and then JCD , suggesting that the selection of board members is based on different criteria for each journal.…”

The Characteristics of Journal Editorial Boards in Library and Information Science

“…The academic reputation of a journal will be strongly influenced by the reputations of its EBMs, and it would hence appear mandatory for them to have a demonstrable track record of research, typically as demonstrated by high levels of publication, citation and funding. However, studies of leading journals in several professional subjects (accountancy (Lowe & van Fleet, 2009), counselling (Weinrach, Thomas, Pruett, & Chan, 2006), finance (Hardin, Liano, Chan, & Fok, 2008), management (Bedeian, van Fleet, & Hyman, 2009b), and social work (Pardeck, 1992)) suggest that this is not always the case, with some EBMs demonstrating levels of scholarly achievement notably less than might have been expected. Such studies are, hardly surprisingly, quite controversial (Bedeian, van Fleet, & Hyman, 2009a).…”

Identity and publications of editorial board members on counseling journals

“…As Weinrach et al. (2006) pointed out,

The scholarly journals in professional and scientific fields serve as the primary means of communicating new knowledge and informed discourse on the major issues affecting the field. As such, these journals wield significant influences on what information will be incorporated into the foundational knowledge of the profession.

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“…To discharge this responsibility, editorial board members need to have extensive experience with the process of research and the dissemination of scholarly findings (Weinrach et al., 2006).…”