The Use of Bibliometrics to Measure Research Performance in Education Sciences

Andrea Diem and Stefan Wolter
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Andrea Diem: Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SCCRE), Aarau

No 66, Economics of Education Working Paper Series from University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Abstract: This paper investigates the fitness-for-purpose and soundness of bibliometric parameters for measuring and elucidating the research performance of individual researchers in the field of education sciences in Switzerland. In order to take into account the specificities of publication practices of researchers in education sciences, the analyses are based on two separate databases: Web of Science and Google Scholar. Both databases show a very unequal distribution of the individual research output, and the indicators used to measure research performance (quantity of publications and citation impact) from the two data sources are highly positively correlated. However, individual characteristics of the researchers, such as age, gender and academic position, that serve to explain the great variance in research performance, can only be identified if the Web of Science is used as a benchmark of research performance. The results indicate that Google Scholar is so inclusive that it impedes a meaningful interpretation of the data. However, the Web of Science inclusion policy for journals is also associated with certain shortcomings that put some researchers at an unjustified disadvantage. Therefore, problems currently exist in regard to both citation databases when used to benchmark individual research performance.

Keywords: bibliometrics; education sciences; research performance; scientometric methods; science research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2011-09, Revised 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-sog
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:educat:0066

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