Publishing in Educational Research Journals: Are Graduate Students Participating?

Professional collaboration in academia is valued because it is believed to encourage the generation and synthesis of ideas, to enhance workplace environments, and to comprise a key element in mentoring practices. Collaboration in writing is often of two types: formal co-authorship or informal commentary on colleagues' work. Formal co-authorship is a topic that usually draws more attention for its problems and potential controversies than for its putative benefits. In our study, we examined professional academic co-authorship. Focusing on the field of education, we identified four research sub-fields (general education, educational psychology, language studies, and literacy studies) and analysed academic peer-reviewed journals from each of these sub-fields to establish how much collaboration exists in published articles. We then examined the extent to which graduate students are co-authors in these publications and what role this collaboration takes. Implications for collaboration with and between graduate students are discussed.