Who Submits Work to JMCQ and Why? A Demographic Profile and Belief Summary

Abstract

This article reports results of a survey of authors of submissions to Quarterly over a five-year period. The goal was to take stock of who the journal's contributors are and to get a sense of their evaluation of the peer review process. In addition to describing authors who submit their work (faculty rank, academic degrees, years teaching, etc.), we chose to examine their views on peer review because of concerns the literature-in journalism and mass communication (J/MC) and the academy general-with the process.Studies have shown the process can have inconsistent standards,1 an inability to catch mistakes2 or detect fraud,3 a confirmatory bias,4 and even against female authors.5 Given demographic shifts the academy-women outnumber men among those earning doctorates, though they remain outnumbered among tenure- track faculty6-examining perceived fairness of peer review is timely. This study investigates perceived biases against specific research approaches, but also per- ceived gender bias.7We also see these data as providing an update to a number of previous studies of J/MC scholars' perceptions of peer review. Ryan compared journal referees and J/MC faculties' rankings of sixty evaluation criteria.8 While Ryan asked about peer review in principle, Leslie had AEJMC (Association for Education Journalism and Mass Communication) members report their levels of satisfaction with peer review in prac- tice.9 Leslie called it startling-and troubling that the highest-rated practice is essentially clerical: acknowledgment of receipt of your article! Leslie also solicited open-ended responses, which included descriptions of an old boys network and comments that J/MC research is too quantitative and based on social science meth- odologies. Surveying AEJMC members, Poindexter found women more likely than men to rate bias against methods and bias against topics as threats to the peer review process.10Surveys other disciplines have found the strongest predictor of satisfaction is simply whether one's latest manuscript was accepted.11 The authors concluded that peer review is seen as a rather than an to obtain advice and assis- tance.12 This hurdle vs. opportunity issue has not been addressed within J/MC. Thus, we pose three research questions:RQ1: What is the demographic profile of authors submitting to Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ)?RQ2: How do authors evaluate JMCQ 's peer review process, compared with mass communication journals generally?RQ3: What individual characteristics best predict satisfaction with the peer review process?MethodDesign and SampleAuthors who had submitted at least one manuscript to JMCQ from 2005 to 2010 were invited to complete a web-based survey about the review process for the last article they submitted to JMCQ and about review processes of other mass communication journals. A link was emailed fall 2010 to 714 authors; five reminders yielded 377 (52.8%) responses (330 were fully completed). To secure human subjects approval, all identifying information was removed once survey responses were received. No iden- tifying information was ever shared with any journal personnel, a fact emphasized to respondents.Respondents indicated the decision (accept, reject, revise) on their last JMCQ sub- mission, how many articles they submitted and had accepted by JMCQ and other mass communication journals during 2005-2010, and their total career peer-reviewed pub- lications (as sole or co-authors). They reported hours per week spent on research and percentage of work effort devoted to research. Each identified a preferred research approach: qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, or other. Finally, respondents indicated their age, sex, years of experience higher education, highest degree, aca- demic rank, and tenure status.To measure beliefs about the peer review process, respondents used a 7-point scale (7 = strongly agree) with seventeen statements adapted from previous studies13 about peer review (see Table 2 for wording and descriptive statistics), ranging from admin- istrative processes to the substance of reviewer comments, to perceptions of and whether reviewer comments were helpful improving one's work. …