Research Methods in Public Administration Journals:
A Systematic Review
Adel AlAdlani*, Daniela C. Schroeter, Ruth M. Bates-Hill, Hussein Chalabi, Gregory D. Greenman II, Mike Mendenhall, and Diane Thompson
Population and Sample Findings, continued
Purposeful selection of primary journals of four public administration membership associations,
including: the American Society for Public Administration’s (ASPA) Public Administration Review
Abstract (PAR), the Association for Public Policy and Management’s (APPAM) Journal of Policy Analysis and
Management (JPAM), the Public Management Research Association’s (PMRA) Journal of Public
This poster includes findings from a systematic
Administration Research and Theory (JPART), the Association for Research on Nonprofit
review conducted during a doctoral methods
Organizations and Voluntary Action’s (ARNOVA) Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ).
course at Western Michigan University. The
systematic mixed methods review covered key
public administration membership association Findings
journals. The review indicated differences in the
research methods and types used with a strong
preference for using quantitative research.
Problem Statement
Research methods are widely taught in social
Conclusions
science graduate programs. Knowing the research
1. Overall, 79% of articles published in the public administration journals studied have clear
designs that are employed or underutilized by
method section. The 21% of articles with no method explained are identified as general
researchers provides information for curriculum
articles describing specific theories in the field or commentaries providing instructions about
development in public administration.
certain themes.
2. 45% of the articles published do not have question stated clearly. This does not mean that
Research Questions articles do not have questions at all; it means articles do not tend to mention the questions
1. What proportion of articles published in public identified with a question mark (?).
administration journals have clearly identifiable 3. Most of the published research articles studied use a nonprobability sampling technique. This
method sections, stated questions, sampling may be correlated with the type of data used, as 53% of articles use secondary data for certain
approach, data type, and method? purposes relevant to the study or easy access to data.
2. How does research published in these journals 4. There is a high frequency in the use of quantitative methods in public administration (80%).
differ? Small percentages of articles use qualitative and mixed methods in all the four journals except
JPAM, which published no articles using qualitative or mixed methods in 2015 or 2016.
Research Design Next Steps
A systematic mixed methods review was 5. Complete coding of years 2007 to 2014
conducted to examine the research questions. 6. Refine analytical procedures
7. Analyze complete dataset and formulate conclusions and implications
Methods 8. Draft and submit manuscript
A total of 425 articles were randomly assigned to
21 coder pairs for review. Data elements were Contacts
entered into a Qualtrics database. Interrater *Adel AlAdlani, Doctoral Student, Western Michigan University Dept. of Public Affairs and
agreement was assessed and discrepancies Administration,
[email protected]corrected during several agreement workshops.
Data from Qualtrics were provided to students in
Acknowledgements
an MS Excel spreadsheet. Students devised their
Faculty mentor Dr. Daniela C. Schroeter, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, School of
own analytical plans, which were approved by the
Public Affairs and Administration;
[email protected], for her efforts in providing a
instructor, and carried out individual analyses.
high-value learning experience. Gregory Greenman, II, Doctoral Research Assistant, for
Data were examined via descriptive statistics.
developing the Qualtrics database, expert management of data cleaning efforts, and providing
final data for analysis.
