Publications in four gifted education journals from 2001 to 2006: An analysis of article types and authorship characteristics

We reviewed articles from four premier journals in the field of gifted education for the years 2001 to 2006 (N = 506). We classified articles according to types, including narrative, descriptive, correlational, meta-analysis, causal-comparative, experimental, and qualitative. Results indicated that 46% of the articles were narrative, 16% qualitative, 13% causalcomparative, 10% correlational, 9% descriptive, 2% experimental, 1% meta-analytic, and 3% fell into multiple categories. We also collected information concerning the first authors of each article to determine the frequency of publication, gender, professional affiliation, and review board membership. Our results indicated that there is a need for more diversity in the gifted education field, particularly in terms of professional affiliation. The most salient need, however, is for more evidence-based research.