Audience matters: A study of how authors select educational journals

Abstract

The reward-maximization model of scholarly publication suggests that the dominant consideration in an author's selection of journals is the maximization of professional rewards, whereby authors choose those journals that enjoy the highest prestige rather than those that best serve the author's communication purposes. In this study, authors who had contributed to five prestigious educational journals were surveyed to determine the relative influence of various factors on their choice of journals for submitting papers. It was found that what concerned them most when selecting journals was a journal's readership and topical affinity with his or her manuscript, thus making the reward-maximization model inapplicable in the case of education. Furthermore, authors in more centrally educational specialty areas gave significantly more consideration to the editor of the target journal than their counterparts from more peripherally educational journals. © 2008 De La Salle University, Philippines.