Managing Editor: Ken Sobel
Send an email to the managing editor at: jpi@uca.edu
Latest issue: Volume 28, Issue 1, Spring, 2024
Aims of the journal
Presenting the results of one’s scholarship through a printed medium requires the development of formal, written communication skills, which makes students more attractive to employers and admissions committees for graduate and professional training. Because modeling can facilitate learning, showing students what their peers have accomplished should encourage ever widening circles of students to become engaged in, and excited about, research. With all that in mind, the Journal of Psychological Inquiry (JPI) exists to illustrate the high quality of undergraduates’ scholarly work, promote the refinement of research and written communication skills, and increase students’ success in their professional lives following graduation.
A brief history
The earliest formal discussion of a student journal, which would become JPI, occurred at the inaugural meeting of the Nebraska Psychological Society (NPS) on September 25, 1993 at Nebraska Wesleyan University (NWU) in Lincoln. Faculty from Bellevue College (now University), Creighton University, Doane College, NWU, University of Nebraska at Kearney, and University of Nebraska – Lincoln who attended the meeting formed a caretaking board.
Members of that board, which included Ken Keith, Richard Miller, Robert Rycek, Roxanne Sullivan, and Mark Ware, met at NWU on January 21, 1994. The minutes from that meeting noted that the assembled group talked at length about sponsoring an undergraduate psychology journal and agreed that Mark Ware might make an excellent editor for such a journal – a possibility that he was willing to consider.
Along with Journal of Psychological Inquiry, other titles that were initially considered were Studies in Psychological Science and Psychological Investigation.
The first meeting of the nascent JPI editorial board convened on June 9, 1994 in Overland Park, KS. In attendance were Stephen Davis, Gwen Murdock, Robert Rycek, Marilyn Turner, and Mark Ware. Topics for discussion included eligibility for submission, instructions for contributors, the review process, subsequent processing of manuscripts, journal production, cost of production, and sources of funding. Additional discussion included creating a separate nonprofit corporation (Great Plains Behavioral Research Association) for processing funding and securing copyright protection for the journal.
The journal’s first issue appeared in the spring of 1996. For those of you who are counting, the gestation period for JPI was longer than that of an Asian elephant, but I think the wait for the journal was worth it!
In 2006, the editors of JPI established the Elizabeth A. Dahl, Ph.D., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research to recognize Dr. Dahl’s unique contributions to undergraduate research in psychology. As a member of the faculty at Creighton University for 25 years beginning in 1971, Betty actively engaged students in all aspects of the research process: conceptualizing the problem, collecting and analyzing data, writing manuscripts, and presenting results at professional conferences. She routinely worked long hours and sacrificed her free time to provide opportunities for students to become involved in research. For each issue of JPI, the managing editor selects the manuscript that best represents the ideals that Dr. Dahl so clearly demonstrated.
The aims and history of JPI were condensed from editorials written by founding editor Mark Ware that can be accessed in their original forms by clicking the links here, here, and here.