Characteristics of Authorship and Papers to an Education Journal in the Pacific Islands: Pacific Islands Educational Journal

Abstract

This study aims to explore characteristics of authorship and papers published in Directions: Journal of Educational Studies from 1978 to 2005. As an exploratory study (Creswell, 2003), it incorporates a mixed method analysis and makes statistical and qualitative inferences (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003). The study found that most authors to the journal are male; an overwhelming number of them are single authors; and that there is a high presence of opinion papers rather than empirical studies. Furthermore, it was shown that most contributors to the journal are expatriates, defined as those whose nationalities are outside the Pacific Islands, and also that, apart from Fiji, more needs to be done in terms of directed research on other island states in the Pacific region. Tokelau, for example, is a member of the University of the South Pacific (USP), the institution that publishes the Directions, but no articles based on this Pacific nation has been published in the journal’s thirty year existence. The study suggests that there needs to be more collaborative educational research conducted within and beyond the Pacific Islands, as international collaboration, especially with countries ahead in educational research, is positively related to increased publication productivity and impact.