Prolific Authors In The Journal Of Agricultural Education: A Reivew Of The Eighties

A total of 309 articles published in 10 volumes of the Journal of Agricultural Education (JAE) were examined to determine prolific authors in the JAE for the decade of the eighties. Prolific authors for this study were defined as those authors who had published five or more articles in the ten volumes of the JAE. Based on this definition, 21 authors were identified as most prolific. These 21 prolific authors were interviewed via telephone to obtain background information, and also determine what factors influenced them to become prolific. In addition, how authors respond to replication requests was also examined. These 21 authors published 151 articles accounting for 49% of the total number of articles published in the JAE. Most authors have Ph.D. degrees and were employed in universities as full professors. Authors identified teacher education, adult education, vocational education, program planing and evaluation, curriculum development, communications and international agriculture as their main areas of expertise. Prolific authors were most likely to be first or second authors. Personal drive, colleagues, graduate school training and advisors during graduate training were factors which influenced them to become prolific. Almost all prolific authors responded positively to share details of their studies for replication. The agricultural education profession has a long history and tradition of research and development support. Rapid growth of research and publishing activities in the profession have resulted in an enormous growth of agricultural education literature. The Journal of Agricultural Education (JAE) (formerly AATEA Journal) has been one of the primary outlets for disseminating agricultural education research. The articles appearing in the JAE present a good indicator of the profession's scientific activity, philosophy and application. Prolificy is useful because it provides a means of objective measurement of some key aspects of the discipline. Such measurement will help examine trends and directions of a discipline based on the assumptions that writings of prolific authors reflect a discipline's progress and growth.