Practitioner Research Author Guidelines

Professional School Counseling journal has expanded its focus on action-research articles, written by practicing school counselors, counselor educators and school counseling students. Consider writing an article for PSC about the practitioner research you are conducting at your school or in your school district.

Prepare the manuscript that includes (2,500–3,000 words, or approximately 10-14 pages not including cover page, abstract, and references):

Cover Page
Title, authors, school, contact information

Abstract (75 word limit)
Describe purpose/practice/program, the results, and implications.
Introduction (first paragraph – do not use heading ‘Introduction’)
Set the stage for the manuscript by describing briefly the school counseling issue related to the research that will be described.
Briefly describe the purpose or need for this action research?

Literature Review
What previous research exists that addresses your focus?
What evidence of best practices exits in the literature?
How does this action research align with the ASCA National Model and contribute to school counseling evidence-based practice?
(A succinct review of the literature is sufficient.)

Method
Identify the research design (i.e., survey, case study, pre-post) the participants (including demographic description), the intervention and data collection procedures (including description of the instruments), and data analysis.

Results
Report the findings of the data collected focusing on the interesting findings.
Report complete data set in a table/chart.

Discussion
Discuss the findings and the meaning of the findings.
How were the results used and how did they influence the school counseling
program?

Implications for School Counselors
What do these findings mean for school counselors? For counselor educators? For school districts?
How can other school counselors use what has been learned from the intervention or the findings?

Conclusion
A brief summary of the research and findings.

References
Citations to provide support for issue, best practices and use of data strategies
Conform to the American Psychological Association (APA) Publications Manual (6th ed.). 

Appendices, Tables, Figures
See APA for formatting.
Consider using table/chart to report findings and figure to share data collection instruments, lesson plans, intervention materials.

Questions? Contact Associate Editor for Practitioner Research, Dr. Carol Kaffenberger.

Action Research and Writing Resources:
See Professional School Counseling recent publications of practitioner research and the Practitioner Action Research Special Edition of Professional School Counseling, August 2009, for examples of practitioner-written manuscripts

For writing/formatting assistance: American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.)Washington DC: Author.