aerj-topic-selection

Topic Selection & AERJ Fit (aerj-topic-selection)

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.

When to trigger

• Choosing or sharpening the question for an AERJ paper
• Unsure whether the topic is "big enough" for a flagship general journal
• Naming the dominant lens: policy/institutional, teaching/learning, human development, or cross-cutting
• Weighing AERJ vs a specialty outlet (e.g., a subfield or methods journal)

The fit test (broad significance)

1. Field-wide stakes. Could a researcher in a different education subfield care about the finding or the framing? If only one niche cares, it may be off-fit.
2. Significance for policy and/or practice. AERJ values work that informs how education is organized, taught, or experienced — name the stake explicitly.
3. Conceptual contribution, not just a result. What do we understand differently afterward? Tie this to aerj-theory-and-framework.
4. Equity and context. AERJ readers expect attention to who is studied, in what context, and for whom the claim holds.

Naming the dominant lens

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.

Anti-patterns

• A descriptive result with no broader significance ("we found X in one district")
• Pitching to a niche when the framing could reach the field
• Picking a lens by method (e.g., "it's qualitative so it must be learning/development") — wrong axis
• Chasing trendiness over a durable conceptual question

Fit-and-routing decision grid (AERJ-specific)

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

Worked fit vignette (illustrative)

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.

Common rejection-at-the-gate patterns and the fix

• Topic is real but small. → Connect the local finding to a field-wide debate or a policy/practice stake the whole field recognizes; if none exists, route to a specialty journal honestly.
• Lens chosen by method, not topic. → Re-choose on the topic axis; AERJ publishes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed work.
• Trend-chasing with no durable question. → Anchor to a conceptual question that survives the news cycle; confirm scope expectations against the journal's current submission guidelines.

Output format

【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

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — education-research data sources by topic and level
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — AERJ scope and integrated-journal history