IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v88y2011i2d10.1007_s11192-011-0408-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price revisited: on the growth of dissertations in eight research fields

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Peter Andersen

    (Aarhus University Hospital
    Royal School of Library and Information Science)

  • Björn Hammarfelt

    (University of Uppsala)

Abstract

This paper studies the production of dissertations in eight research fields in the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. In using doctoral dissertations it builds on De Solla Prices seminal study which used PhD dissertations as one of several indicators of scientific growth (Price, Little science, big science, 1963). Data from the ProQuest: Dissertations and Theses database covering the years 1950–2007 are used to depict historical trends, and the Gompertz function was used for analysing the data. A decline in the growth of dissertations can be seen in all fields in the mid-eighties and several fields show only a modest growth during the entire period. The growth profiles of specific disciplines could not be explained by traditional dichotomies such as pure/applied or soft/hard, but rather it seems that the age of the discipline appears to be an important factor. Thus, it is obvious that the growth of dissertations must be explained using several factors emerging both inside and outside academia. Consequently, we propose that the output of dissertations can be used as an indicator of growth, especially in fields like the humanities, where journal or article counts are less applicable.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Peter Andersen & Björn Hammarfelt, 2011. "Price revisited: on the growth of dissertations in eight research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(2), pages 371-383, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:88:y:2011:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-011-0408-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0408-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-011-0408-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-011-0408-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. M. Gupta & C. R. Karisiddappa, 2000. "Modelling the Growth of Literature in the Area of Theoretical Population Genetics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 49(2), pages 321-355, October.
    2. Michael Mabe & Mayur Amin, 2001. "Growth dynamics of scholarly and scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(1), pages 147-162, April.
    3. Lundberg, Jonas, 2007. "Lifting the crown—citation z-score," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 145-154.
    4. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Hans‐Dieter Daniel, 2008. "Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h index? A comparison of nine different variants of the h index using data from biomedicine," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(5), pages 830-837, March.
    5. Loet Leydesdorff, 2009. "How are new citation‐based journal indicators adding to the bibliometric toolbox?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(7), pages 1327-1336, July.
    6. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2004. "Reconsidering Price's model of scientific growth: An overview," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(3), pages 301-321, November.
    7. Ritz, Christian & Streibig, Jens C., 2005. "Bioassay Analysis Using R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 12(i05).
    8. Chung-Souk Han & Su Kyung Lee & Mark England, 2010. "Transition to postmodern science—related scientometric data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(2), pages 391-401, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kawalec Paweł, 2020. "The dynamics of theories of economic growth: An impact of Unified Growth Theory," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 6(2), pages 19-44, June.
    2. Cathelijn J F Waaijer & Benoît Macaluso & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Stability and Longevity in the Publication Careers of U.S. Doctorate Recipients," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Norma Salgado-Orellana & Emilio Berrocal de-Luna & Calixto Gutiérrez-Braojos, 2021. "A scientometric study of doctoral theses on the Roma in the Iberian Peninsula during the 1977–2018 period," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 437-458, January.
    4. Martin Wieland & Juan Gorraiz, 2020. "The rivalry between Bernini and Borromini from a scientometric perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1643-1663, November.
    5. Timothy D. Bowman & Andrew Tsou & Chaoqun Ni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2014. "Post-interdisciplinary frames of reference: exploring permeability and perceptions of disciplinarity in the social sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1695-1714, December.
    6. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2012. "Time series of scientific growth in Spanish doctoral theses (1848–2009)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(1), pages 15-36, April.
    7. Inés M. Fernández-Guerrero & Zoraida Callejas & David Griol & Antonio Fernández-Cano, 2020. "Longitudinal patterns in Spanish doctoral theses on scientific medical information: a tertiary study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1241-1260, August.
    8. Sung Kim & Derek Hansen & Richard Helps, 2018. "Computing research in the academy: insights from theses and dissertations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 135-158, January.
    9. V. Hernández-González & A. Pano-Rodríguez & J. Reverter-Masia, 2020. "Spanish doctoral theses in physical activity and sports sciences and authors’ scientific publications (LUSTRUM 2013–2017)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 661-679, January.
    10. Noriyuki Morichika & Sotaro Shibayama, 2016. "Use of dissertation data in science policy research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(1), pages 221-241, July.
    11. Chung-Souk Han, 2011. "On the demographical changes of U.S. research doctorate awardees and corresponding trends in research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(3), pages 845-865, December.
    12. Duarte-Martínez, V. & Cobo, M.J. & López-Herrera, A.G., 2022. "Uncovering patterns in the supervision of Spanish theses: a comprehensive analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    13. Peter A. Schulz & Edmilson J. T. Manganote, 2012. "Revisiting country research profiles: learning about the scientific cultures," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(2), pages 517-531, November.
    14. Christian Thiele & Gerrit Hirschfeld & Ruth Brachel, 2021. "Clinical trial registries as Scientometric data: A novel solution for linking and deduplicating clinical trials from multiple registries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9733-9750, December.
    15. Qian-Jin Zong & Hong-Zhou Shen & Qin-Jian Yuan & Xiao-Wei Hu & Zhi-Ping Hou & Shun-Guo Deng, 2013. "Doctoral dissertations of Library and Information Science in China: A co-word analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 781-799, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    2. Bornmann, Lutz & Mutz, Rüdiger & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2010. "The h index research output measurement: Two approaches to enhance its accuracy," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 407-414.
    3. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2012. "Time series of scientific growth in Spanish doctoral theses (1848–2009)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(1), pages 15-36, April.
    4. Bornmann, Lutz & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2013. "The validation of (advanced) bibliometric indicators through peer assessments: A comparative study using data from InCites and F1000," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 286-291.
    5. C. O. S. Sorzano & J. Vargas & G. Caffarena-Fernández & A. Iriarte, 2014. "Comparing scientific performance among equals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1731-1745, December.
    6. Antonio Fernández-Cano & Manuel Torralbo & Mónica Vallejo, 2004. "Reconsidering Price's model of scientific growth: An overview," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(3), pages 301-321, November.
    7. Marcel Ausloos, 2014. "Binary scientific star coauthors core size," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(2), pages 331-351, May.
    8. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    9. Yu-Chun Chen & Hsiao-Yun Yeh & Jau-Ching Wu & Ingo Haschler & Tzeng-Ji Chen & Thomas Wetter, 2011. "Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database: administrative health care database as study object in bibliometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(2), pages 365-380, February.
    10. Andersen, Jens Peter, 2017. "An empirical and theoretical critique of the Euclidean index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 455-465.
    11. Kakushadze, Zura, 2016. "An index for SSRN downloads," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 9-28.
    12. Muzammil Tahira & Rose Alinda Alias & Aryati Bakri & A. Abrizah, 2016. "Meso-level institutional and journal related indices for Malaysian engineering research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 521-535, May.
    13. Antonio Fernandez-Cano & Inés M. Fernández-Guerrero, 2017. "A multivariate model for evaluating emergency medicine journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 991-1003, February.
    14. Tripathy, Prajukta & Jena, Pabitra Kumar & Mishra, Bikash Ranjan, 2024. "Systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of energy efficiency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    15. Vîiu, Gabriel-Alexandru, 2016. "A theoretical evaluation of Hirsch-type bibliometric indicators confronted with extreme self-citation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 552-566.
    16. Sibilla Montanari & Evi Agostini & Denis Francesconi, 2023. "Are We Talking about Green Skills or Sustainability Competences? A Scoping Review Using Scientometric Analysis of Two Apparently Similar Topics in the Field of Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-25, September.
    17. Deming Lin & Tianhui Gong & Wenbin Liu & Martin Meyer, 2020. "An entropy-based measure for the evolution of h index research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2283-2298, December.
    18. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-García & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras, 2014. "Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: edited books, book series and publisher types in the book citation index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2113-2127, March.
    19. Raf Guns & Yu Xian Liu & Dilruba Mahbuba, 2011. "Q-measures and betweenness centrality in a collaboration network: a case study of the field of informetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(1), pages 133-147, April.
    20. Sten F Odenwald, 2020. "A citation study of earth science projects in citizen science," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:88:y:2011:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-011-0408-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.