AERA Conference Guide by Adam Hocker & Leslie Cano

Introduction

The American Educational Research Association annual meeting is arguably the largest conference in the field of education in the United States. The organization boasts over 25,000 members from every state in the Union and in 86 countries internationally (American Educational Research Association, 2015). The annual meeting, often referred to as the AERA conference or simply “AERA”, is massive and rotates between different host cities across America each year, filling major convention centers and overtaking multiple hotels at once. The conference can be intimidating for those entering the academic arena, but also an enriching and integral part of your career trajectory. This guide is designed to help people decide if they want to attend the conference, to assist first time conference goers in navigating the conference, and to help people who have previously been to AERA enhance their conference experience.

Deciding to Go

Deciding to attend AERA can be difficult and there are many things to consider when thinking about the conference. Here are some pros and cons to think about when it comes to AERA.

Pro: This is the Super Bowl of education conferences

Or World Series, Stanley Cup, NBA Championship of education conferences, and if you’re not a sports fan understand this is a very big deal. It is a conference that nearly everyone in the field goes to. If you want to be in the center of new education research, innovation, and debate, this is the conference you want to attend.

Con: The conference is almost too big

The conference is often housed in multiple locations and trying to understand where the next conference session you want to see is being held can be challenging. Walking venue to venue can take time and you can get lost in a strange city in the process. On top of all that, there are almost 50 sessions running at once. How do you prioritize? Where do you start? You can’t possibly see everything. There can be three sessions you’d love to see and they are all going on at the same time. It can be very discouraging.

Pro: The conference is a great place to network       

Networking is an important way to grow any career and it is especially true in academia. But we should be clear that when we talk about networking, we don’t mean that you try to meet as many people as you can or only talk to people  can help your career. Not at all. The type of networking you can do at AERA is between other people with your research interests. There’s also no shame in trying to talk to some of your research heroes. The networking connections you make could become future collaborators, research mentors, or even just a group that gets together at the conference every year.

Con: The conference can be very expensive

When you consider the total cost of attending the conference you have to consider more than just the price of AERA membership and the price of conference admission ($72 for a student membership and $80 for the conference) but you have to add in the cost of lodging, transportation, food, ground transportation (such as cabs/Uber, subways, etc.), and sightseeing (optional, buy probably inevitable). This can add up to thousands of dollars very quickly and can be prohibitively expensive.

Once You’re There

If you’ve weighted the pros and cons and decided to attend, it’s time to figure out what you want to do at the conference. As we’ve said before, the conference is huge but with a little planning, you can shrink the conference down to a much more manageable size. One of the first things you can do is start to plan ahead to see where you want to go. You can download the phonebook sized conference program from the AERA website or download the AERA app (for Apple or Android). You can explore the long, long list of sessions and start planning which ones you want to attend. If you’re using the app, you can schedule the sessions on the calendar so you can plan your day out in advance.   You can also see the receptions that are being offered and can plan where to meet your friends or meet new people.

Divisions and SIGs

The American Educational Research Association is composed of twelve divisions based on broad research interests. The divisions (American Educational Research Association, 2016) are:

Division A – Administration, Organization and Leadership
Division B – Curriculum Studies
Division C – Learning and Instruction
Division D – Measurement and Research Methodology
Division E – Counseling and Human Development
Division F – History and Historiography
Division G – Social Context of Education
Division H – Research, Evaluation and Assessment in Schools
Division I – Education in the Professions
Division J – Postsecondary Education
Division K – Teaching and Teacher Education
Division L – Educational Policy and Politics

When you become an AERA member, you have the option to join a division and you can join others at any time. During the conference, the divisions will have their yearly meetings, hold elections, and conduct business. Division meetings are a great place to meet people who are interested in the same thing you are. Divisions keep in touch throughout the year through newsletters and emails. Divisions also post job openings and opportunities to publish year round.

One of the common abbreviations you will see at the conference is “SIG”. A blunt but honest question you might ask yourself when seeing these three letters is “What the in the word is a ‘SIG’?” Special Interest Groups or SIGs, are smaller groups of AERA members who share specific research interests. There are 53 SIGs you can join. Much like the Divisions, the SIGs will also hold their annual meetings where they hold elections and conduct business at AERA. SIGs are where you can find collaborators, mentors in your research area, and like-minded people. You are encouraged to join as many SIGs as you find relevant to you, though the price of membership varies from $5 to $25. SIGs, like the Divisions, keep in touch all year long, posting job openings, emerging research, and calls for papers.

Finding Sessions

Worth mentioning again is that the program for the AERA conference is gigantic. Categorizing it as a phonebook sized manual is not an exaggeration, but once you crack open the tome or skim through the pdf, you’ll find it is actually pretty easy to find sessions you will want to attend. Here are a few guidelines for finding a session:

Limit yourself to three sessions a day

First time conference goers can sometimes feel pressured to go to as many sessions as possible; going to the conference can be expensive and you want to get your money’s worth, but you can burn yourself out on the conference very quickly that way. The best way to get the most out of the conference without experiencing burnout is to limit your sessions to two or three per day, splitting them between the morning and afternoon.

Find sessions based on your research interests

If you are using are using the pdf program or the mobile app, do a search for your interests. If you like the feel of paper between your fingers, skim through the sessions for each day and look for sessions that might align up with your interests. Be sure to read the summary of each session and look at the titles of the papers that will be presented. If one or more of the papers sound interesting, then you’ve found a session to attend!

Explore new topics

As you’re selecting sessions, take the opportunity to visit a session on a topic you don’t know much about or a topic you’ve enjoyed from a class or from your work experience. A conference of this size and importance has a wealth of information and is a great place to expand your knowledge. Who knows what could happen when you go to a session outside your usual interests.

Visit the poster sessions

Posters sessions are a wonderful place to go between paper and roundtable sessions or during downtime. You will find a ballroom full of scholars who are visually displaying their work. The authors are usually there to answer questions, explain the findings, or talk about the research in general. One of the best features of a poster session is you have a good chance of having a one on one conversation with the presenter about their research. Poster sessions change on a regular interval during the days so it is worth going back multiple times during the conference.

Being In A Session

You’ve spent the money, you’ve traveled a lot of miles, you’ve planned ahead, and you’re sitting in your first conference session. As you’re sitting in your almost comfortable hotel chair you might be wondering how you’re supposed to act. A lot of first time conference goers might feel a little nervous at how formal everything feels. While that feeling comes from a good place, you can relax: the general feel of a session is professional but not formal.

You can bring something to drink with you

Often people will bring water, coffee, tea, soda or other drinks to a session. As long as you’re considerate and don’t make a mess no one will mind.

It’s okay to take notes

You will see people taking notes throughout the sessions either on their computer or in a notebook. It is also acceptable to take photos of interesting slides that a presenter is showing. You will see people snapping shots of slides in almost every session.

Bring a pocket charger or extra battery for your phone

An unfortunate reality of our day and age is that the devices we love so much need a lot of power. You will always see people tethered to the too few outlets trying to charge their phones, tablets, or laptops. While a laptop will always need an outlet, you may be able to free yourself from the wall if you bring a pocket charger or a spare battery. These little devices are exceptionally handy during the long conference days.

Have a pocket full of business cards

Having business cards is purely an optional part of going to the conference, but having a card with your institution, name, and email address can go a long way as you network. A business card does not need to be fancy looking and can be homemade if you want to save a little money but being able to pull out a card during a conversation adds a little polish to any elevator pitch.

Vendors

During the conference, take some time to see the vendors in one of the ballrooms. There are demonstrations for software like Nvivo, Stata, and SPSS along with guides and materials to help you learn the applications and get the most out of what they can do. There are tables from other educational technology companies that are always worth visiting. You also have the opportunity to visit the tables of publishers such as Sage, Routledge, and other imprints and buy titles directly. Some of these tables look like small libraries and it can be very difficult to resist buying a suitcase worth of books.

Receptions

Receptions are arguably the best part of the conference. There are multiple receptions during the week, many at the same time so you may want to pace yourself as you visit them. Depending on who is hosting the reception, they may be formal events so it is in your best interest to dress up. There are receptions hosted by AERA, different universities and colleges, institutions, the Divisions, and by SIGs so again, plan ahead. If you have chosen to bring business cards, make sure you have them in your pocket before you go.

It should be mentioned that you need to make sure how open the reception you plan on going to is. Some are invitation only, some are open to everyone, and some are harder to determine their status. Make sure it is okay for you to attend by asking someone you know who is going to the reception or reading about it in the program instead of crashing a reception and committing a social faux pas.

Sight Seeing

One of the best parts of the AERA conference is the opportunity to explore a different city every year. Seeing the tourist sites or the local haunts can be a lot of fun and a great way to get to know a city. Take some time to try the local food, night life, and culture, and be sure to download the local transportation apps to your phone, if applicable. But don’t overdo it. You’re in the city for the conference, not to vacation.

Post Conference

Once the conference is done and the suitcase is unpacked, it’s good to follow up with the people you’ve networked with. A simple email mentioning a conversation you had with the person or mentioning the possibility for collaboration you discussed at the conference, even to reiterate a shared interest in a topic goes a long way in solidifying a relationship with a new colleague.

It is also a good idea to stay in touch with the Division(s) you joined and the SIGs you’re a member of. Confirm that you’re on their email lists, and if they send newsletters, take a few minutes to read them and stay up to date with what is going on with those groups. Sometimes these groups do events over the course of the year and if they do, consider participating.

Lastly consider ideas that you can turn into a proposal for next year. Everyone could use the practice when it comes to proposing research and while the conference is massive and has a low acceptance rate, you could still be accepted to next year’s conference.