Adultspan Publication Patterns: Author and Article Characteristics From 1999 to 2009

Publication patterns of articles in Adultspan from 1999 to 2009 were reviewed. Author characteristics and article content were analyzed to determine trends over time. Research articles were analyzed specifically for type of research design, classification, sampling method, types of participants, sample size, types of statistics used, and statistical sophistication. ********** Research regarding adult development is a critically important area of the extant counseling literature. Adult development literature informs counseling practice with diverse clientele and allows discourse on essential theoretical and professional issues. Adultspan is the official journal of the Association for Adult Development and Aging (AADA), a division of the American Counseling Association (ACA), and was first published in 1999. No issues of Adultspan were published from 2002 to 2004, but publication resumed in 2005 and continues to the present time. Past editors of Adultspan have included Larry Burlew (Vol. 1, No. 1) and Peter Emerson (Vol. 1, No. 2; Vol. 2, No. 1). The current editor is Catherine Roland (Vol. 2, No. 2 to the present). Adultspan is jointly published by AADA and ACA and primarily publishes theoretical, practice, and research articles of interest to professional counselors who work with adult clients of all ages and in all settings. The purpose of this article is to provide the first comprehensive review of Adultspan journal content with a specific focus on describing article and author characteristics and trends. Erford, Miller, Duncan, and Erford (2010) identified three primary ways to understand evolutionary changes in journal content and characteristics: special sections and issues, qualitative reviews, and quantitative metastudies. Special sections and issues published by a journal can be quickly reviewed to identify the important professional or topical issues affecting a profession and society. Only one special issue has been published in Adultspan, and it focused on women's development (Vol. 6, No. 1). A second approach, ordinarily undertaken by skillful, knowledgeable scholars, involves a systematic, qualitative review of journal article characteristics to point out content-related findings and trends. The third approach, and the one adopted for this study of Adultspan publication patterns, is a quantitative, descriptive metastudy approach that documents author and article characteristics. Usually, research articles are of special interest, particularly the methodologies, sample characteristics, and statistical methods used. However, in a quantitative metastudy, characteristics are described numerically, collapsed into time periods, and analyzed statistically to identify trends over time. Identification of important professional, scholarly, and social justice issues and trends over time can be valuable to a journal's consumers and decision makers. Although this is the first publication pattern review conducted for Adultspan articles, similar analyses have been conducted for other counseling journals published by ACA. For example, Erford et al. (2010) conducted a publication pattern review of Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development (MECD; 1990-2009); Crockett, Byrd, Erford, and Hays (2010) for Counselor Education and Supervision (CES; 1985-2009); Charkow and Juhnke (2001) and Juhnke, Bordeau, and Evanoff (2005) for the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling (1979-1998 and 1999-2004, respectively); and Streicher and Gerstein (1994) for the Journal of Mental Health Counseling (1979-1992). Perhaps the counseling journal that has been given the greatest attention to date is the Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD; and its previous incarnation The Personnel and Guidance Journal), portions of which have been analyzed by Berry and Wolf (1958); Stone and Shertzer (1964); Brown (1969); Pelsma and Cesari (1989); Weinrach, Lustig, Chan, and Thomas (1998); and Williams and Buboltz (1999), although each of these review articles focused broadly on various article and author characteristics. …