Communication and Work Patterns among Productive Scholars in Psycho-Educational Research: The Invisible College Hypothesis

By counting publications in the American Education Research Journal (1968-1977) and the Journal of Educational Psychology (1958-1977) 62 prolific scholars were identified. These scholars provided information by questionnaire about their communication patterns, academic background, their paradigms, shifts in research focus, time spent on various professional activities, age, and years of training. These scholars also provided information as to persons who had been influential in their research and persons with whom they had interacted frequently about their research. Data about the persons listed and citation data were used to test the invisible college hypothesis. This hypothesis was not robustly supported.