Educational Researcher Journal Metrics

Educational Researcher (ER) journal metrics represent the citation ratios and percentile rankings calculated by Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and Elsevier Scopus for the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association. For the JCR data release, Educational Researcher recorded a 2-year Journal Impact Factor of 5.5 and a 5-year Impact Factor of 7.9, ranking 38th of 760 journals in the Education & Educational Research category (Q1). Per DORA and Leiden Manifesto principles, these journal-level metrics evaluate aggregate citation distribution rather than the quality or significance of individual articles.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 7 Nov 2026

Journal Overview and Scope

Educational Researcher is an AERA journal for the broad education research community. Its AERA page describes three types of research article (feature articles, reviews/essays, and briefs), technical comments, and commentary under headings such as policy forum, letters, and books.

Educational Researcher Impact Factor

People searching for the “educational researcher journal impact factor” usually want two numbers. The AERA journal page lists both:

Impact Factor: 5.4
5-Year Impact Factor: 7.6

Impact factors are updated each year, and third-party sites often show different values or different data years. For a figure to cite, use the AERA journal page or Clarivate Journal Citation Reports and note the date you read it.

How the Journal Impact Factor Is Calculated

The Clarivate Journal Impact Factor is a ratio. The numerator is the number of citations in the data year to items the journal published in the two preceding years. The denominator is the number of citable items (articles and reviews) the journal published in those two years. The 5-year version applies the same logic over five preceding years, which gives a longer window for fields where citations accumulate slowly.

Responsible Use of Journal Metrics

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends against using journal-based metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.

Not a measure of one article: a journal’s impact factor describes the journal’s citations in aggregate, so it says little about any single paper in it.
Hiring and promotion: committees can read the work itself rather than rely on the journal title or its impact factor.
Funding: applicants to funders, including those listed in education research funding, are best served by describing the contribution of the work, not only where it appeared.

Related reading: peer review and the Crossref DOI identifier used to cite published articles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the impact factor of Educational Researcher?

The AERA journal page, checked 2026-11-07, lists an Impact Factor of 5.4 and a 5-year Impact Factor of 7.6.

What is the difference between the 2-year and 5-year impact factor?

The 2-year figure counts citations to items from the previous two years; the 5-year figure uses a five-year window.

Which organization publishes Educational Researcher?

The American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Should I judge an article by the journal’s impact factor?

DORA recommends against it; assess the article on its own merits.

Sources

American Educational Research Association. Educational Researcher. https://www.aera.net/Publications/Journals/Educational-Researcher (checked 2026-11-07).
Clarivate. Journal Citation Reports. https://clarivate.com/products/scientific-and-academic-research/research-discovery-and-workflow-solutions/journal-citation-reports/ (checked 2026-11-07).
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Read the declaration. https://sfdora.org/read/ (checked 2026-11-07).

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