From aerj-skills
Tests whether a research topic fits the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) by evaluating broad significance, dominant lens, and field-wide stakes. Does not generate research questions.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/aerj-skills:aerj-topic-selectionThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
AERJ publishes work that spans the **whole field of education research** and matters **beyond a single
AERJ publishes work that spans the whole field of education research and matters beyond a single subfield. Before anything else, decide two things: is the question of broad significance, and what dominant education-research lens makes it legible to the integrated AERJ audience.
aerj-theory-and-framework.| Your topic is about... | Dominant lens |
|---|---|
| Policy, governance, finance, accountability, organizations, institutions, equity at the system level | Policy / institutional / organizational |
| Teaching, instruction, curriculum, learning processes, cognition, motivation, human development | Teaching / learning / development |
| The school as an organization and what happens in classrooms | Name the dominant framing; explain cross-field travel |
The lens is about topic and framing, not method. A multilevel quantitative study and an ethnography can both belong if the field-wide contribution is clear.
A flagship AERA general journal weighs reach across the field more heavily than methodological novelty alone. Read your topic against this grid before committing to the AERJ target.
| Topic shape | Likely verdict | Dominant lens | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-district descriptive finding, no broader claim | Better suited to a specialty outlet | None yet | Fails broad-significance test |
| Statewide accountability policy and its equity consequences | Strong fit | Policy / institutional | System-level institutional question |
| Classroom-level mechanism of how students learn a concept | Strong fit | Teaching / learning / development | Learning/development process |
| School organization shaping classroom instruction | Fit — name dominant lens | Cross-cutting | Straddles; pick framing axis, justify it |
| Methods demonstration with thin substantive stake | Needs sharpening | None yet | AERJ wants the education question foregrounded |
A researcher has data on a principal-mentoring program across 60 schools and finds a leadership turnover reduction of about 9 percentage points (illustrative). Pitched as "a turnover study," it reads as a niche HR result. Re-pitched as how institutional support reshapes who stays to lead high-need schools and what that means for equity of access to stable leadership, it becomes a policy/institutional question of broad significance — the same 9-point number now carries a field-wide stake. The topic did not change; the framing crossed it from subfield-only to AERJ-appropriate.
【Question】one sentence
【Broad significance】who beyond the subfield cares + policy/practice stake
【Conceptual contribution】what we understand differently
【Dominant lens】policy/institutional / teaching-learning / development / cross-cutting (and why)
【Fit verdict】strong / needs sharpening / better suited elsewhere
【Next】aerj-literature-positioning
../../resources/external_tools.md — education-research data sources by topic and level../../resources/official-source-map.md — AERJ scope and integrated-journal historynpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin aerj-skillsHelps decide whether a sociology project fits the American Journal of Sociology (AJS) and how to frame it for theoretical ambition and general significance.
Routes AERJ manuscript authors to the right sub-skill based on lifecycle stage and field-wide education-research fit. Dispatches only.
Assesses educational-psychology project fit for the Journal of Educational Psychology, guiding manuscript type selection and scoring based on relevance, theory, rigor, and ecological validity.