A COMPARATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF "TRAINING, THE MAGAZINE OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT" AND "TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL"

This study consisted of a comparative content analysis of two journals, Training, the Magazine of Human Resources Development, and Training and Development Journal, over a nineteen year span, from 1964 through 1982. The purpose of the study was to see what differences and similarities existed between the two journals that are circulated most widely to those working as trainers and human resources developers, and to determine to what extent the journals offered their readership similar ideas, emphases and perspectives. In short, it was a study that examined, compared and contrasted trends regarding content, methodology and author demographics of selected articles. All articles in both journals were examined, and those articles which focused on one of the four basic content areas--quality of worklife, evaluation, national policy issues, and retraining--were selected for analysis on a number of variables: length of the article (which was converted into standard inches for comparative purposes); methodology of presentation (which included research, interpretive literature reviews, techniques of practice, personal belief, theoretical or philosophical formulations and new or model programs); gender, professional affiliation and geographic location of the author; and the number of citations and references. From the population of 2,708 articles, 627 articles were selected, 203 or 22.3% of all articles published in Training, and 424 or 23.6% of all articles published in Training and Development Journal. What emerged from this study is a picture of two journals which are nearly identical in the percentage of space they devote to certain content areas, and nearly identical in the percentage of articles they publish by male and females, but strikingly different in other ways, most notably the methodologies used in presenting the articles. Training included a higher percentage of articles written by consultants and a lower percentage of articles written by academics. The editors have chosen to accept articles which contain few citations and references, and which are most frequently of the practical variety, as opposed to research pieces. Training and Development Journal, on the other hand, included more articles by academics, and a far higher percentage of the articles include citations and references.