MSERA | Mid-South Educational Research Association

Mid-South Educational Research Association Investigating today to improve education tomorrow.
Publications

Research in the Schools

Research in the Schools (RITS; ISSN 1085-5300) is a nationally/internationally refereed journal co-sponsored by the Mid-South Educational Research Association and Sam Houston State University. The journal publishes original contributions in the following areas:

Research in practice - empirical studies focusing on the results of applied educational research including cross-cultural studies
Topical articles - scholarly reviews of research, perspectives on the use of research findings, theoretical articles, and related articles
Methods and techniques - descriptions of technology applications in the classroom, descriptions of innovative teaching strategies in research/measurement/statistics, evaluations of teaching methods, and similar articles of interest to instructors of research-oriented courses
Assessment - empirical studies of norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, and informal tests in the areas of cognitive ability, academic achievement, personality, vocational interests, neuropsychological functioning, and the like
Educational policy, reform, and accountability - empirical studies or conceptual pieces focusing on educational policy, school and educator accountability, politics of education, or educational responses to reform mandates
Other topics of interest to educational researchers

RITS is devoted to research conducted in any educational setting from a conventional elementary school or high school to a training program conducted within an industry. Likewise, there are no age restrictions on the sample, since the educational settings may include preschools, continuing education classes for adults, or adaptive skills courses in nursing homes. Studies conducted in settings such as clinics, hospitals, or prisons are ordinarily inappropriate for RITS unless they involve an educational program within such a setting. One goal of RITS is to provide a training ground for graduate students to learn effective reviewing techniques. Consequently, the journal utilizes a Graduate Student Editorial Board composed mostly of students in educational psychology and educational research. Members of this Editorial Board, each sponsored by a professor, provide supplementary reviews for a selection of submitted articles, and receive both direct and indirect feedback of the quality of these reviews.

Editorials on Research in the Schools

An Account of 15 Years of Research in the Schools (Vol. 16, No. 2)
Beginning a Second Decade of Research in the Schools (Vol. 11, No. 1)
Evidence-based Guidelines for Publishing (Vol. 12, No. 2)
Research in the Schools and MSERA (Vol. 17, No. 1)

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Special Issues

Preparing Manuscripts

Submission of Manuscripts

Copyright and Permissions

Preparing Manuscripts

Authors should prepare manuscripts in accordance with the stylistic rules and guidelines delineated in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Authors should also refer to the guidelines editorial from the Fall 2005 issue (Vol. 12, No. 2), as well as the guidelines for following APA format addressed in the editorial in the Spring 2007 issue (Vol. 14, No. 1). Number the pages consecutively. All manuscripts will be subject to editing for sexist language. All reporting of statistical significance must include estimates of effect size.

Editorials on Formatting

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Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts and questions should be submitted electronically to Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, co-editor. All manuscripts will undergo a rigorous internal review process to ensure that the manuscript is within the scope of RITS, is of sufficient quality, and conforms to APA style guidelines. Only manuscripts that satisfy all the following requirements will be sent out for external review:

Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere in part or in whole will not be considered for publication in RITS. Co-editors will not consider any manuscripts that have been published in such arenas as conference proceedings, yearbooks, online sources, journals, and book chapters. Only original unpublished works will be considered for review in RITS. Manuscripts of which only the abstract has been published previously may be submitted for review.
Length of the manuscripts, including references and tables, should ordinarily range from about 10 to 40 typed, double-spaced, 8.5 x 11-inch pages, using 12-point type.
Abstracts are limited to 120 words.
The title page should provide title, names, and affiliation of all authors, and contact information of one corresponding author.
Tables should be created using autotable format such that no column lines (i.e., vertical lines) are used in the tables and only row lines (i.e., horizontal lines) are used at the top, bottom, and heading of the table per APA style. Download this file for assistance with table formatting.
Tables and figures should not be embedded within the body of the manuscript; rather, all tables should appear (one table on each page) after the reference list, followed by all figures (one figure per page).
Brief reports of research are not encouraged.
All manuscripts submitted for review should be original material, not published in part or in whole in any other publication. Moreover, no manuscripts submitted for review should be under review at any other journal.

Authors are encouraged to keep an electronic copy of the manuscript to guard against loss. The editorial team will "blind" all manuscripts before sending them for external review. Review time is 3-4 months.

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Authors are granted permission to reproduce their own articles for personal use. Others must request permission to reproduce tables, figures, or more than 500 words of text from the editors. Copyright © 2009 by the Mid-South Educational Research Association.

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		Mid-South Educational Research Association Since 1972