Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications American Educational Research Association

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is pleased to provide guidelines for reporting on empirical social science research in AERA publications. These guidelines apply to reports of education research grounded in the empirical traditions of the social sciences. They cover, but are not limited to, what are commonly called qualitative and quantitative methods. Other forms of scholarship equally important to education research include reviews of research; theoretical, conceptual, or method-ological essays; critiques of research traditions and practices; and scholarship more grounded in the humanities (e.g., history, philosophy , literary analysis, arts-based inquiry). The latter forms of scholarship are beyond the scope of this document. The aim of specifying reporting standards for empirical research in education is to assist researchers in the preparation of manuscripts that report such work, editors and reviewers in the consideration of these manuscripts for publication, and readers in learning from and building upon such publications. The primary audience for these standards is researchers who wish to publish reports of empirical research and who review such research for AERA publications. In adopting these standards, AERA emphasizes that the standards are intended to provide a framework of expectations, or rules of thumb, about what a report of empirical work ordinarily should address. The standards are not intended to define the conduct of empirical research. Although research reporting and research conduct are necessarily related, decisions about how to conduct empirical research are the researcher's responsibility. The standards are also not intended to define or determine the format for writing empirical work. Reports of different kinds of empirical research can take different forms, and authors working in different methodological or intellectual traditions may vary in the modes, order, or form of presentation. Finally, the acceptability of a research report does not rest on evidence of literal satisfaction of every standard in this document, and acceptability cannot be determined by using a checklist. In a given case, there may be a sound professional reason why a particular standard is inapplica-ble. The purpose in specifying these standards is to provide guidance about the kinds of information essential to understanding both the nature of the research and the importance of the results. While these standards are directed to authors, editors, reviewers, and readers of AERA journals, the substance of the standards and the breadth of methodological coverage are not particular to education research. Thus, in publishing these standards, the Association seeks to offer …