The evaluation of the global research on the education: A scientometric approach

Abstract

The scientometric analysis of the research has become one of the most used methods to assess the research performance of the individual researchers, departments, faculties, universities, countries, and journals in recent years. However, there has not been an extensive scientometric evaluation of the global research on the education to examine the development of the research in this area. The purpose of this study was to carry out a scientometric evaluation of the global research performed by the higher education institutions on the education for the period from 1980 to 2011. The scientometric analysis has a great potential to gain valuable insights into the evolution of the global research on the education, complementing the scientometric studies in the other fields such as renewable energies as well as students with disabilities providing a unique insight on the incentive structures for all the key stakeholders in the field. It was concluded in this context that the incentive structures may have not been well designed to produce superior research performance in educational research as in hard sciences such as Engineering and Health Sciences especially in the design of the rules for the academic appointments and promotions in universities. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.