Three Decades of the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning

Editors

The founding editor was Sherman D. Hanna (1990–2002), the second editor was Sandra Helmick (2003–2005), the third editor was Fran Lawrence (2006–2013), and the current editor is Jing Jian Xiao (2014–present).

Book Editors

Two people served as book review editors, Musaddak J. Alhabeeb (1997–2002) and Barbara O'Neill (2004–2015). Starting in 2016, JFCP stopped publishing book reviews to give more space for publishing original research papers.

Associate Editors

The following people served as associate editors in decades one or two: Sharon Burns (1990–1991), Suzanne Lindamood (1997–1998), William Bailey (1992–1997), and Rui Yao (2001–2002). Former associate editors in decade three were Sonya Britt-Lutter (2017–2018) and Joyce Serido (2017–2018). Current associate editors are Swarn Chatterjee (2017–present), Jr-Tsung Huang (2017–present), Charlene M. Kalenkoski (2017–present), Jinhee Kim (2017–present), Yoon Lee (2019–present), and Tong Yu (2019–present). Associate editors help handle peer review processes, provide accept/revise/reject recommendations for the editor, and give suggestions for major decisions regarding the journal.

Guest Editors

published several special issues on selected topics and the following people served as guest editors (in parentheses are the topic and publication year): William H. Carter, Jonathan Fox, and Kate Padgett Walsh (Ethics, 2017), Manouchehr Mokhtari (Health, 2018), and Jr-Tsung Huang (Financial well-being, 2018). Several special issues are planned that will be published in future issues.

Size Change

The journal was originally published in a smaller size of paper (6″ × 8.5″). Starting in 1995, under the editorship of Sherman D. Hanna, the journal was published in a larger size of paper (8.5″ × 11″).

Issue Frequency Change

Originally, only one issue of JFCP was published per year. Starting in 1997, under the editorship of Sherman D. Hanna, two issues a year are published.

Name Change

The original name of the journal was Financial Counseling and Planning. In 2008 under the editorship of Fran Lawrence, the name was changed to Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning in volume 19 issue 2.

Change of Publisher

From its beginning year (1990) to 2015, the journal was self-published by AFCPE. Starting in 2016, under the editorship of Jing Jian Xiao, the journal has been published by Springer Publishing Company.

Number of Papers Published

During the first two decades (1990–2009), JFCP published 271 papers and 47 book or software reviews (Ji et al., 2010). During the third decade (2010–2019), 168 research papers, 8 editorials, and 35 book reviews were published. In the following sections, only statistics of research papers are presented.

Prolific Authors

During the third decade, the most prolific author published in JFCP was Sherman D. Hanna. Other prolific authors included Sonya Britt-Lutter and Swarn Chatterjee (both ranked second); John E. Grable, Michael Finke, Sandra J. Huston, and Kyoung Tae Kim (all ranked fourth; Table 1, left panel). For comparison, John Grable and Sherman D. Hanna were in the top five prolific authors in decade two (Ji et al., 2010) and Sherman D. Hanna was the most prolific author during the first decade (Hanna, 1999). For all three decades, the top five prolific authors were Sherman D, Hanna, John E. Grable, Jing Jian Xiao, Sharon A. DeVaney, and Jean M. Lown (Table 1, right panel).

Sole Versus Coauthorship

coauthorship. The percentage of sole authorship was similar to decade two but much lower than decade one, which was 16%, compared to 17% in decade two and 30% in decade one (Table 2).

Author Affiliations

Based on Scopus, in decade three, the following universities have the highest numbers of authors appearing in JFCP: Kansas State University, University of Georgia, Texas Tech University, and Ohio State University. University of Georgia, and Ohio State University were also on the top three lists of author affiliations during decades one and two (Table 3).

Author Countries

The author base has greatly expanded internationally over the last three decades. Based on Scopus, in the first decade, authors were only from four countries (United States, Canada, South Korea, and Kenya). In the second decade, authors were from 10 countries (United States, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Poland, Russian Federation, and Sweden). In the third decade, authors were from 20 countries/areas (United States, China, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, Belgium, Brazil, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, and Malaysia; Table 4).

Keywords

Keyword changes usually demonstrate the trends of the journal. In this journal, keywords are defined and provided by authors to describe the subjects of articles. For decade three, we analyzed keyword frequency using Scopus and compared these with keywords used in decade one and decade two presented by Ji et al. (2010). We grouped keywords into thematic categories. The top six most used keywords for the third decade are financial literacy (which also includes financial knowledge, appearing 44 times), retirement planning (retirement, retirement saving, retirement adequacy, 35), risk tolerance (financial risk tolerance, risk aversion, risk, 32), financial planning (financial advice, financial planner, estate planning, 31), financial education (adult education, workplace education, employee education, education, 29), and personal financial behavior (financial behavior, 22; Table 5). Compared to the last two decades, three categories, financial education, financial literacy, and personal financial behavior were not ranked in the first decade but ranked 7th, 3rd, and 5th, respectively, in the second decade. In decade three, the ranking of retirement planning increased (2nd vs. 3rd and 11th), that of financial planning increased from decade two (4th vs. 3rd and 7th), and that of risk tolerance decreased from decade two (3rd vs. 6th and 2nd).

Besides the keywords presented in Table 5, other commonly used keywords in the last 30 years were financial well-being (which also includes financial wellness, financial satisfaction, economic well-being, appearing 32 times in Scopus), financial stress (stress, economic stress, financial stress, financial problems, financial anxiety, 30), college student (young adult, emerging adult, 21), gender (gender difference, 16), and financial socialization (economic socialization,12).

Research Method Type

Following Ji et al. (2010), among research papers, there are four types of research methods including qualitative research, quantitative research, normative research, and literature review or opinion. In decade three, the percentage of qualitative research papers among 168 papers was 84%, increasing from the previous decades (70% and 69%, respectively). Among other types, percentages of qualitative research, normative research, and review/opinion papers were 5%, 3%, and 8%, respectively, decreasing from the previous decade (10%, 10%, and 11%, respectively; Table 6).

Data Analysis Type

Data analysis types include descriptive statistics, regression or regression-like analyses, and other analyses. According to Ji et al. (2010), descriptive statistics include univariate and bivariate analyses such as t tests or chi-squared tests. Regression and regression-like analyses include ordinary least squares, probit, Tobit, logit, and other regression analyses. Other analyses include those that did not use descriptive and regression analyses such as factor analysis, path analysis, structural equation modeling, and so forth. During the third decade, the most used data analysis method, includes regression and regression-like analyses which accounted for 77% of all quantitative research papers, increased compared to decades one and two (69% and 74%, respectively). The percentage of papers using descriptive analyses was 8%, decreased from decades one and two (16% and 13%, respectively). The percentage of quantitative papers using other types of analyses was 14%, similar to the previous two decades (14% and 13%, respectively; Table 7).

National or International Datasets Used

During the third decade, 62 quantitative papers used national or international datasets. Among those, the most used dataset was Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF; 29%), decreased from decades one and two (76% and 58%, respectively). However, 15% of the papers used the National Financial Capability Study (NFCS), which was not used in previous decades (NFCS started its first survey in 2009). Other popular datasets used in decade three were the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; 11%) and National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY; 11%), increased from previous decades. One dataset, Consumer Expenditure Survey, was used in only one paper (2%), lower than decade one (8%) and similar to decade two (2%). In addition, two datasets used in decade three were never used in previous decades, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID; 8%), and De Nederlandsche Bank Household Survey (DNBHS; 5%). The percentage of using other datasets was 21%, increased from the previous two decades (12% and 18%, respectively). These national or international datasets were used for the first time in papers of this journal. Among them, international datasets included China Family Panel Study, Canadian General Social Survey, Household, Income, and Labor Dynamics in Australia, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment; and U.S. national datasets included American Dream Demonstration, Asset and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old, Familial Response to Financial Instability Study, Health Tracking Household Survey, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, National Survey of Midlife Development, Public Access to Court Electronic Records, and Survey of Income and Program Participation (Table 8).

Author Services

After the journal was published by Springer, an online submission system has been used that is convenient for authors to submit and monitor submission statuses. The publisher also maintains a journal website and posts recent papers and connects them to several helpful social media tools such as Kudos to help authors promote their papers. The publisher website also provides helpful features such as “Share,” “Alert,” “Most Cited,” and so forth. (https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrjfcp). AFCPE staff have helped promote JFCP papers by giving online research webinars and issuing social media posts. AFCPE also sponsors the outstanding research journal award and gives awards annually to a paper that is nominated by a nominating committee composed of the last year's winner and four editorial board members and then voted on by the entire editorial board members. The awarding paper and author information is posted on the AFCPE website. The JFCP editorial office has also helped distribute journal information through the Consumer listserv and other listservs and post recent published papers to the public.

Readers and Member Services

Papers in most older issues are available for readers that can be found on the AFCPE website. AFCPE also provides special benefits for its members to have access to research published in JFCP such as social media posts, Friday research posts, online research webinars, and annual symposium special sessions. For members who need continuing education credits, reading JFCP papers and answering questions online can partially fulfill the requirements.