Arizona State’s McNamara First Editor of New Open-Access APA Journal

Newswise — WASHINGTON -- Danielle S. McNamara, PhD, has been named the inaugural editor of the new journal Technology, Mind, and Behavior, to be published by the American Psychological Association. This interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal will feature research on human–technology interaction with a focus on human behavior at individual or group levels.

McNamara is professor of psychology and director of the Science of Learning and Educational Technology Lab at Arizona State University. The overarching theme of her research has been to better understand cognitive processes involved in comprehension, writing, knowledge acquisition and memory, and to apply that understanding to educational practice by developing and testing educational technologies. Two of her projects, The Writing Pal and iSTART, are computer-assisted learning programs designed to advance students’ writing and reading comprehension. Another, Coh-Metrix, is a text analysis tool designed to advance understanding of the nature of text difficulty. She has published over 400 papers and secured more than $20 million in federal research funding. McNamara holds a PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Colorado-Boulder, an MA in clinical psychology from Wichita State University and a BA in linguistics from the University of Kansas.

“The APA Journals program is known for providing an authoritative voice in psychology and setting standards in the field. We are enthused to launch this new journal on a new platform, providing opportunities for authors and readers to engage in ways that extend beyond traditional publishing,” said APA Journals Publisher Rose Sokol-Chang, PhD. “Dr. McNamara is the ideal person to lead the journal as founding editor.”

“I see this journal as upholding a standard of open access to all data and code required to replicate all stages of research,” McNamara said. “Technology, Mind, and Behavior will emphasize transparency and generalizability. We will encourage data sharing and access to targeted technologies, including programming code. Our objective is to publish studies with either positive or negative results, including null results and failed replications.”

To ensure that the journal represents different research communities, McNamara will recruit an editorial board made up of researchers across research areas; look for leading scholars covering the breadth of topics addressed by the journal to submit empirical reviews and theoretical papers; and attend conferences in an array of relevant areas. She is already involved with many scholarly societies, including Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence in Education, Society for Computers in Psychology, Educational Data Mining, the American Educational Research Association, Society for Text and Discourse, and Learning Sciences. McNamara also plans to focus on social media and multimedia outreach, including interviews with authors.

Her tenure as editor runs through 2025.

Technology, Mind, and Behavior will showcase basic and applied empirical research on the psychology and dynamics of the interaction between humans and technology. Meta-analyses and literature reviews that summarize the current state of science on a relevant topic will also be accepted. Research featured in Technology, Mind, and Behavior may address the full range of contemporary and emerging technologies. These include but are not limited to artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile devices, social media, virtual/augmented reality, gaming, geographic information systems, autonomous vehicles, nanotechnology and biomedical technologies (e.g., brain-machine interfaces and genetic engineering). 

Technology, Mind, and Behavior will be an online-only, open access journal, and the first journal hosted on the new APA Open platform. McNamara will begin accepting submissions online in October and the first articles will be published as they become available, most likely in the first quarter of 2020.

The American Psychological Association is the world’s largest nonprofit publisher of psychological science, setting standards for scholarship in the field. APA Publishing produces journals, books, videos, databases and educational products for researchers, practitioners, educators, students and the public.