Manuscript authors' perspectives on the peer review process of the journal of engineering education

Research communities often emphasize theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and topics that appeal to particular subgroups of scholars within the community. Therefore, one of the challenges associated with the peer review process is ensuring that innovative ideas are not rejected simply because they live outside the conventional paradigms of the community. Determining why manuscripts are rejected from premier outlets, which influence the norms of a field, can further our understanding of existing disciplinary boundaries and how to increase the diversity of perspectives and the participation of scholars with views outside the conventional paradigm in the community. However, much of the literature on disciplinary boundaries focuses on the reliability of reviewers themselves and published manuscripts. As such, this paper focuses on the experiences and perspectives of scholars who have submitted to but not published an article in the Journal of Engineering Education through in-depth, qualitative interviews.