Academics’ views on publishing refereed works: A content analysis

Survey research was carried out with academics (N=205), from a large regional Australian university, to explore their views about publishing or not publishing in refereed sources and their perceived worth of this activity. Several open-ended questions were included in the survey to elicit information about the factors that either encourage or discourage these academics from publishing. Additionally, questions were posed to allow the respondents to discuss ways that the University could further support them in their endeavour to produce at least some or more scholarly publications. The responses to these questions were content analysed to discover key categories and frequencies were calculated on the most salient categories. The results of this analysis are reported and comparisons are made on the responses of male and female academics. The implications of the results for higher educational practice are considered.