Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice: Scope and Opportunities
The Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice (JSARP) stands as a vital resource for professionals, scholars, and policymakers dedicated to the field of student affairs and higher education. Published by Taylor & Francis, this journal serves as a platform for disseminating innovative research, effective practices, and insightful analyses that contribute to the advancement of the field. JSARP is indexed in public directories and offers a wide range of topics, thereby maximizing its scholarly impact and contribution to the field. The choice of journal can affect your academic career, making you more competitive for grants, tenure, and other professional opportunities. While JSARP appreciates traditional scholarship, it also welcomes and publishes articles that move audiences beyond the commonly accepted or expected discourses. Especially encouraged are manuscripts that are unconventional in nature, as well as those that blend conventional and unconventional scholarly approaches that challenge the traditional paradigm of research methods, analyses, and presentation of data. This article delves into the scope, objectives, and unique features of JSARP, highlighting its significance for both practitioners and researchers.
Overview of JSARP
JSARP caters to a broad constituency within the student affairs domain. Its readership encompasses entry-level, intermediate-level, and senior-level professionals, including practitioners, scholars, policy makers, faculty, and executive leaders. These educators hold diverse institutional responsibilities, making JSARP a valuable resource for a wide range of perspectives and experiences.
The journal's aim is to publish innovative, interesting, and relevant articles that span the full range of possible forms. While the editors recognize that published articles must be relevant and useful to practitioners, JSARP also serves faculty, researchers, scholars, and academic leaders. Not all articles will speak to all constituencies all the time.
Key Areas of Focus
JSARP covers a wide array of topics relevant to student affairs and higher education. These include, but are not limited to:
- Policy Issues: Examining policies impacting students and institutions.
- Community Engagement: Exploring the role of student affairs in fostering community partnerships.
- Management and Organization: Analyzing effective management practices within student affairs.
- Student Engagement: Investigating strategies to enhance student involvement and success.
- Internationalization and Globalization: Examining how students are prepared to work and thrive in ever-changing climates.
- Diversity Coursework: Exploring how to develop reflective, justice conscious administrators.
JSARP is particularly interested in manuscripts that provide a unique perspective on current issues impacting institutions and students.
Read also: International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education: An overview.
Types of Manuscripts Accepted
JSARP welcomes a variety of manuscript types to accommodate diverse research and scholarly approaches. These include:
- Theoretical Manuscripts: These papers draw on existing research literature to advance theory in student affairs and higher education, similar in structure and form to review manuscripts, theoretical manuscripts are different in that they rarely present data or findings.
- Review Manuscripts: Critical evaluations of previously published material, including meta-analyses, policy analyses, and compilations of existing theories or models. Review manuscripts often include a) issue being considered, b) summary of previous research and literature, c) identification of relationships, "contradictions, gaps and inconsistencies" (p. 7), and d) implications for practice, policy, and next steps.
- Reports of Empirical Studies: Original research reports that stress the link between research and practice. Methodological Manuscripts discuss new, modified, or applied methodologies in the context of student affairs and higher education.
- Methodological Manuscripts: Discussions of new, modified, or applied methodologies in student affairs and higher education, whether practice-oriented (e.g., assessment, evaluation) or theory-oriented (e.g., research).
- Case Studies: Reports of case materials obtained while working with an individual, a group, a community, or an organization. Often used to present qualitative research findings, discuss issues or problems in practice (e.g., policy analysis) and solutions to the same, reveal the use of or potential for a research approach, apply theory to practice, or analyze and/or apply an innovative practice.
- Innovations in Research and Scholarship Features: Manuscripts submitted for review in this area may include qualitative and quantitative manuscripts that clearly provide a theory-research-practice connection. The manuscripts should be methodologically sound with a clearly defined practice section in which the author(s) shares how the research relates to college or university functioning (e.g., policy issues, community engagement, management, organization, student engagement) and/or how the findings can be used in the practice of administrators, faculty, and students.
- International Features: Manuscripts submitted for review in this area should include cutting-edge research on current international issues impacting higher education and student affairs. A clearly articulated relationship among theory, research, and practice is encouraged. Findings and recommendations should provide new knowledge on ways to internationalize campuses.
- Innovations in Practice Features: Manuscripts submitted for review in this area of emphasis should describe high-quality illustrations of effective, creative, and collaborative practices, programs, or policies. These illustrations are to be grounded in theory, research, and/or pedagogy as well as convey relevance beyond the institution(s) of the author(s).
- Media Features and Reviews: Informative and critical reviews of media relevant to student affairs educators, invited and solicited by the Editor.
Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Authors interested in submitting to JSARP should adhere to the following guidelines:
- Submission Platform: Articles should be submitted via ScholarOne.
- Blind Review: Any identification of the authorship MUST be removed prior to submitting the manuscript. To assure blind review, ALL identifiers must be removed: names on the cover page, identification embedded in the electronic document properties, references to institutional affiliations, and citations that identify some or all of the authors. The cover page must include only the title of the manuscript.
- Length: 7,000 words maximum (inclusive of references, cover page, tables, appendices, and all materials). The length of manuscripts is limited to 7,000 words because the editors are committed to increasing the accessibility of the journal to a wide range of authors. The number of words and pages the Journal can publish are limited by a number of factors related to cost and publication limits. Longer articles decrease the accessibility of the journal to as wide a range of authors as possible.
- Format: American Psychological Association Style, 7th Edition. Do not use generic templates from Taylor and Francis.
- Spacing and Fonts: Double-spaced, including references, block quotes, tables, and figures, consistently applied throughout the manuscript.
- Abstract: 75 or fewer words, submitted within the manuscript document.
- Figures: All figures, tables, and charts must be submitted as an editable word document or EPS or uncompressed Tiff (600 dpi) file in black and white or grey tones in a separate document.
- Language: English or with translations to English included.
- Voice: Active voice.
Review Process
JSARP employs a rigorous review process to ensure the quality and relevance of published articles. Key aspects of the review process include:
- Blind Review: Manuscripts undergo a blind review process to ensure impartiality.
- Editorial Board Review: Manuscripts are reviewed by up to three JSARP Editorial Board members based on their expertise.
- Recommendations: Reviewers provide one of the following recommendations: Not to Accept, Major Revisions Required, Accept Pending Minor Revisions, or Accept.
- Final Decision: The Executive Editor and/or appropriate Associate Editor examines the reviews and renders a final decision.
- Revisions: Authors may be required to make revisions based on reviewer feedback.
- Major Revisions Required: The manuscript has potential for publication, but must be revised before publication can be considered. The author is to address the editorial comments and make appropriate changes within one month. Authors will submit a revised draft for a second round of editorial review. The second review is expected to be completed in 6 weeks but may take longer. The resubmission and second review does not guarantee acceptance.
- Accept Pending Minor Revisions: The manuscript is considered worthy of publication pending the successful completion of minor revisions. Authors are requested to make the revisions and return the revised manuscript within one month.
- Accept: The manuscript is considered appropriate and timely for JSARP.
- Copyediting: Accepted manuscripts are forwarded to a Copy Editor for final editing.
JSARP is available online four times each calendar year. Exceptions to any of the above instructions should be discussed with the Executive Editor prior to submission.
Impact and Influence
The Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice holds significant weight within the academic and professional community. Its impact is reflected in several key indicators:
Read also: Engaging Science Education
- Impact Factor: The journal has an impact factor of 0.9, reflecting its influence and citation rate within the field.
- SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): The journal has an SJR of 0.539, indicating its importance and influence within the scholarly community.
- Quartile: JSARP is ranked in the Q2 quartile, demonstrating its standing among journals in the field of Education & Educational Research.
- Indexed in Web of Science: JOURNAL OF STUDENT AFFAIRS RESEARCH AND PRACTICE is a Web of Science indexed journal that publishes research in the area: Education & Educational Research. The ISSN of this journal is 1949-6605.
Impact factor data has a strong influence on the scientific community, affecting decisions on where to publish, whom to promote or hire, the success of grant applications, and even salary bonuses. Only journals listed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) receive an Impact Factor.
Examples of Published Research
To illustrate the breadth and depth of research published in JSARP, here are some examples of recent articles:
- Using an episode of a student affairs podcast for professional development: This article engages in a critical discourse analysis to better understand what discourses the podcast host and guest rely on when discussing college students engaged in sex work.
- Compassion fatigue among staff members: This constructivist case study examined how a program that serves at-promise students contributes to and alleviates compassion fatigue among staff members.
- Social justice and inclusion in HESA graduate programs: This study highlights how senior student affairs officers perceived social justice and inclusion content in higher education and student affairs graduate programs.
- Advocacy for undocumented students: This study examines how higher education professionals navigate intersectional failures in institutional, state, and federal support as advocates for undocumented students.
- Student suicidality: Results of a survey of SA professionals across the United States assessing their knowledge, opinions, and actions taken around student suicidality.
- Impact of social identities on professionalism: This qualitative study investigated the impact of social identities on how professionalism is learned, practiced, and challenged by new professionals in student affairs.
- Job search journey of international student affairs professionals: This qualitative study explored international student affairs professionals' job search journey in the United States.
- Experiences with political climate: This article describes how recurring racialized incidents have affected student affairs professionals' ability to navigate the United States political climate.
- Relationship between social and professional identity and professional practice: This study examines the relationship between social and professional identity and professional practice.
- Secondary trauma among student affairs professionals: This study used findings from the Secondary Trauma in "Student Affairs Professionals Scale" to explore the extent to which student affairs professionals may experience secondary trauma as well as factors associated with secondary trauma symptomology.
- Experiences of graduate students in a supervised internship: This qualitative study explores the experiences of graduate students in a supervised internship.
- Supervisory practices of inclusive supervisors: This qualitative inquiry examined the supervisory practices of student-affairs professionals who were identified by their supervisees as modeling the tenets of inclusive supervision.
Read also: Planning Education Research
tags: #journal #of #student #affairs #research #and
