Geographically representative scholarship and internationalization in school and educational psychology: A bibliometric analysis of eight journals from 2002-2016

Mapping the research trends of third language acquisition: A bibliometric analysis based on Scopus

L3 acquisition is gaining prominence in the academic community. The cardinal aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of research on L3 acquisition. 425 documents from the Scopus database were analyzed with Bibliometrix. To gain a general and systematic overview of research on L3 acquisition, we grounded our study on three main levels of bibliometric analysis: performance analysis, collaboration analysis, and thematic map. By doing so, we identified the most influential sources, authors, affiliations, countries, and documents, the scientific network among different constituents, as well as the evolution of research trends. The results suggest that L3 acquisition has experienced three periods: initial phase (1984-2008), development phase (2009-2014), and burst phase (2015-2022). The results also indicate that: (1) The International Journal of Multilingualism is the most steady source contributing to this field. (2) Relevant contributors for each period are recognized, including established and emerging researchers. (3) European countries such as Spain, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and Poland are at the forefront of publication. (4) Collaboration increases over time but is becoming increasingly oriented in European and Anglophone countries. (5) The research hotspots have shifted throughout time, encompass a broad range of fields, and continue to grow. The study results provide insights into the evolving trends of L3 acquisition studies and data to assist researchers in identifying research gaps.

International Research Progress in School Travel and Behavior: A Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

A deep understanding of school travel mode can help policymaking related to the optimization of the school travel structure, alleviating urban traffic congestion due to the increasingly prominent phenomenon of urban sprawl. However, existing studies in this field are based on a specific research perspective, and comprehensive reviews are rather limited. Therefore, this study aims to provide an in-depth, systematic review of school travel by using bibliometric analysis. Firstly, based on the Web of Science, TRID, ScienceDirect, and MEDLINE databases, 457 studies about school travel are selected from between 1996 and 2021. Secondly, utilizing bibliometric analysis, the research progress is summarized with emphasis on the annual performance of the literature, publication status of a country or region, literature source institutions, keywords of the literature, and co-citation network analysis. The research results show that (1) the United States, Canada, and Australia rank top in the number of studies on school travel, and they also have high citation frequency and connection strength. (2) This study collects studies published in 34 journal publications, and the “Journal of Transport & Health” is the main source for publishing research. (3) The choice of school travel mode is significantly affected by individual characteristics, family conditions, and social status. The built environment and parental factors play a leading role in students’ active travel to school, and independent mobility and active transport contribute to students’ healthy development. However, policy planning is necessary to further improve the transportation infrastructure sustainability and school route safety. (4) Finally, several promising directions and potential limitations are discussed for developing countries based on the research progress in developed economies.

Measuring publication diversity among the most productive scholars: how research trajectories differ in communication, psychology, and political science

Examining research patterns across scientific fields constitutes a growing research enterprise to understand how global knowledge production unfolds. However, scattered empirical evidence has casted light on how the publication diversity of the most productive scholars differ across disciplines, considering their gender and geographical representation. This study focuses on the most prolific scholars across three fields (Communication, Political Science, and Psychology), and examine all journals where they have published. Results revealed the most common journals in which prolific scholars have appeared and showed that Communication scholars are more prone to publish in Political Science and Psychology journals than vice-versa, while psychologists’ largely neglect them both. Our findings also demonstrate that males and US scholars are over-represented across fields, and that neither the field, gender, geographic location, or the interaction between gender and geographic location has a significant influence over publication diversity. The study suggests that prolific scholars are not only productive, but also highly diverse in the selection of the journals they publish, which directly speaks to both the heterogeneity of their research contributions and target readers.

A Historical Review and Analysis of Impact Factors Across School Psychology Journals from 1977 to 2019

School psychology journals yield hundreds of articles each year. As these journals are often evaluated based on the impact factors they produce, the aim of this study was to provide a historically complete record of the five impact factor values for the generalist school psychology journals that yield them. This study identified impact factors beginning in 1977, 20 years earlier than previously reported, and ending in 2019. Across all years and journals, the average Journal Impact Factor (JIF) was about 1.0, the average Immediacy Index was less than 0.4, the average 5-year Impact Factor was about 2.3, the average original CiteScore was 1.8, and the average new CiteScore was about 3.0. Increases in values were evident across time, and the highest recorded values across journals are held by the Journal of School Psychology (for the JIF, 5-year Impact Factor, and both CiteScore metrics) and School Psychology Review (for the Immediacy Index). Most impact factors, with the exception of the Immediacy Index, were moderately to highly correlated. The new CiteScore values were always the highest, and Immediacy Index values were always the lowest. School psychology has added journals to the list of those indexed by major databases, and these journals have increased their impact over time.

Psychoeducational Challenges in Spanish Children With Dyslexia and Their Parents' Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background

Research during 2020 has been rapidly attending to the impact of COVID-19 on various dimensions of wellbeing (e.g., physical, psychological, lifestyle and routines) on adults and children around the world. However, less attention has focused on the psychoeducational impact on children and their families. To our knowledge, no currently available studies have looked specifically at the impact of COVID-19 on students with dyslexia and their families. Research on this topic is needed to offer greater support for this population of students and their families.

Objective

The main objective of this paper is to examine the psychoeducational impact of the required COVID-19 quarantine in Spain among children with dyslexia and their families.

Method

A sample of 32 children with dyslexia and their mothers participated in this study.

Measures

Children and adolescents with dyslexia and their mother completed several measures before the required national quarantine in Spain and again during the quarantine. Children completed measures of depression, state anxiety, reading activity, and reading motivation. Mothers provided demographic information and completed measures related to students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties as well as parenting stress, parental distress, and a questionnaire about educational problems during quarantine.

Results

Major findings showed that during quarantine, children with dyslexia had increased levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, and parents perceived their children as having more emotional symptoms, hyperactivity-inattention, and conduct problems. During quarantine, children and adolescents with dyslexia also showed less reading activity and less reading motivation. Parents also reported significantly more stress, during quarantine compared to pre-quarantine conditions. Some demographic and psychological variables predicted children’s state anxiety as well parental stress. The questionnaire related to impacts of quarantine also revealed several important findings. For example, nearly all parents of children with dyslexia reported (a) difficulties in establishing study routines, (b) that the quarantine negatively affected their child’s learning, and (c) that they did not receive sufficient help from teachers on how to support their child’s learning. Additionally, the vast majority of the parents were very worried about the child’s learning and school success, the child’s motivation and interest in reading, the child’s peer relations, and the professional skills of the child’s teacher.

Conclusion

This study offers a preliminary investigation into this topic and elucidates several psychoeducational challenges that children with dyslexia and their families have experienced during the quarantine in Spain. Study findings highlight the need to provide immediate support for children with dyslexia and emphasizes the importance of developing prevention programs to mitigate any future negative impacts of COVID-19 on children with dyslexia and their parents.

Editorial boards of 45 journals devoted to school and educational psychology: International characteristics and publication patterns

To assess and promote internationally representative scholarship, several past studies have examined the geographic affiliation of journals’ editorial board members and authors. The present study is the first known to examine this with journals devoted to school and educational psychology. After systematically identifying all peer-reviewed scholarly journals around the globe that are specifically devoted to school or educational psychology ( N = 45), the goals of this study were to (a) report key characteristics about each journal’s editorial board, and (b) examine the extent to which geographic affiliation (country where one is employed) is consistent among a journal’s editorial board members and recent authors. One key finding revealed that editorial boards of the discipline’s journals represent individuals from all global regions, but many global regions (e.g. Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America) are underrepresented. Another finding showed that the vast majority of journals evidence strong similarities in geographic affiliation between editorial board members and authors. Findings, implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed in the context of internationalization.