Publishing Research in the JEE

Abstract

Based on several years of editing papers for the Research Section of the Journal of Economic Education, four suggestions are made for increasing the likelihood that a submitted manuscript is accepted for publication. The primary theme is that the hypotheses investigated should be based on economic theory developed in the manuscript, and researchers should carefully plan the research design and data collection before conducting the quasi-experiments common in the economic education literature. Specific examples are given for each suggestion.

Keywords:

• economic education
• publishing
• research

JEL code:

• A20

Notes

¹Conducting research at multiple institutions introduces institutional and instructor effects that are not present when data is collected from a single instructor at a single institution. These problems are no different than those faced by other economists. When estimating the return to getting a bachelor's degree, labor economists do not restrict samples to graduates from a single institution. They introduce controls for relevant differences in institutions, if possible. This will also work for research in economic education.

²I am certainly not the first to point this out to economic educators; see Becker (1983b). Unlike Becker, the focus of this section is not to explain how to do the theory but to provide a rationale or motivation for researchers to invest their limited time and effort in this endeavor.

³Consider one example of how theory will help. If studying the effect of requiring attendance, it is possible that time spent in class is simply a substitute for study time outside the classroom. Research that finds that requiring attendance has no impact on student learning and students do not alter how much they study outside of class is quite different from finding that attendance does not matter and students study less outside of the classroom. A model of student time allocation will help the researcher to correctly identify the way in which requiring attendance can impact student learning.

⁴Sadly, it is impossible for the class to be exactly the same. The introduction of these assignments, if they are graded, alters the weights assigned to exams and other assignments across classes.

⁵Grodner and Rupp (2013) provided an example using instrumental variables to correct for endogeneity, and Krohn and O’Connor (2005) used purged instrumental variables.