A Comparative Assessment of Public Administration Journal Publications

Abstract

Recent critiques of public administration research have admonished scholars for the lack of rigor in their quantitative research. This study extends the ongoing debate by comparing research published in six public administration journals with that conducted in three related academic fields and three administratively focused practitioner-oriented fields. In general, it is found that public administration research is less oriented toward theory testing and is less quantitatively rigorous than that conducted in the academic fields. Although less conclusive, the findings of the comparison of practitioner-oriented fields suggest that although public administration research may not be atypical of that conducted in such fields, it cannot be counted among the more quantitatively rigorous of those fields.