Analysis of the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in education and educational research category

Abstract

This study analyzes the journal impact factor and related bibliometric indicators in Education and Educational Research (E&ER) category, highlighting the main differences among journal quartiles, using Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index, SSCI) as the data source. High impact journals (Q1) publish only slightly more papers than expected, which is different to other areas. The papers published in Q1 journal have greater average citations and lower uncitedness rates compared to other quartiles, although the differences among quartiles are lower than in other areas. The impact factor is only weakly negative correlated (r=-0.184) with the journal self-citation but strongly correlated with the citedness of the median journal paper (r= 0.864). Although this strong correlation exists, the impact factor is still far to be the perfect indicator for expected citations of a paper due to the high skewness of the citations distribution. This skewness was moderately correlated with the citations received by the most cited paper of the journal (r= 0.649) and the number of papers published by the journal (r= 0.484), but no important differences by journal quartiles were observed. In the period 2013–2018, the average journal impact factor in the E&ER has increased largely from 0.908 to 1.638, which is justified by the field growth but also by the increase in international collaboration and the share of papers published in open access. Despite their inherent limitations, the use of impact factors and related indicators is a starting point for introducing the use of bibliometric tools for objective and consistent assessment of researcher.

Educational Research Review From Diverse Perspectives: A Bibliometric Analysis of Web of Science (2011–2020)

“…As a result, the average number of citations per paper increased over time as a natural consequence of increased international collaboration in educational research (Althouse et al, 2009). Orbay et al (2021) studied the international collaborations in the top 10 most productive countries in the education research in the period from 2013 to 2018 and established that international collaboration increased to higher levels as compared to the values established in Aman and Botte's (2017) study; namely, from 20.6% in 2013 to 29.1% in 2018. On the other hand, a study conducted in the field of special education by O ¨rnek et al ( 2021) pointed out that the international collaboration rate was almost constant in the period from 2014 to 2018 and that the rate of international collaboration for the 10 most productive countries was 36.96% in 2014, 38.06% in 2015, 38.82% in 2016, 33.77% in 2017, and 36.61% in 2018 (average 36.56% in the period of [2014][2015][2016][2017][2018].…”

Bibliometric Profile of an Emerging Journal: Participatory Educational Research

“…On the other hand, it is possible to see similar results in studies focused on citation skewness, especially educational journals and special education journals indexed in the WoS database between 2014 and 2018 (Orbay, Karamustafaoğlu, & Miranda, 2021;Örnek, Miranda, & Orbay, 2021).…”

“…Similarly, in a study of educational research by the twenty most prolific European countries between 2002 and 2013, Aman and Botte (2017) revealed that the number of articles produced by international cooperation in education increased steadily from 14.1% in 2002 to 21.7% in 2013. In a similar study, Orbay et al (2021) showed that internationalization increased from 20.6% in 2013 to 29.1% in 2018.…”

“…The field of education is a sub-science field of social sciences where academic journals have come to the forefront in recent times (Aman & Botte, 2017;Orbay, Karamustafaoğlu, & Miranda, 2021;Örnek, Miranda, & Orbay, 2021). It is apparent that academic journals have started to come to the forefront as a widely used communication tool due to internationalization in the field of education, rapid development of field relations with other branches of science over time and developments in information technologies (Engels et al, 2012;Larivière et al, 2006;Rowlinson et al, 2015;Henriksen, 2016).…”

Uluslararası Dergilerde Yayımlanan Türkiye Adresli Makalelerin Atıf Etkisini Artıran Faktörler

“…TÜBİTAK Türkiye Adresli Uluslararası Bilimsel Yayınları Teşvik (UBYT) Programı çerçevesinde desteklenen makalelerin ortalama atıf sayısı destek almayanlara oranla biraz daha yüksektir (Tonta ve Akbulut, 2020, s. 1627. Dergi etki faktörü yüksek Q1 dergilerinde yayımlanan TR adresli makalelerin ortalama atıf sayısı daha yüksek, bu dergilerde yayımlanan ve hiç atıf almayan makalelerin oranı ise daha düşüktür (Orbay, Karamustafaoğlu ve Miranda, 2021;Orbay, Miranda ve Orbay, 2020). Ancak dünyada makalelerin yaklaşık %40'ı Q1 dergilerinde yayımlanırken, TR adresli makalelerde bu oran sadece %21'dir (Tonta ve Akbulut, 2020, s. 1627.…”