Research activity in Canadian developmental psychology programs.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to summarise recent research activity from 2009 to 2013 of faculty in Canadian developmental psychology programs, as there have been no previous studies on this stream in Canada. Rankings for research productivity (i.e., number of publications) and impact (e.g., citation counts) were evaluated using the Publish or Perish software. Various metrics of impact factor were calculated (e.g., h-index, h I -index, h I, annual -index, and g-index). These metrics were evaluated both with and without the most contributing faculty member to examine both the breadth and depth of each program. Overall, while some universities had relatively stable rankings across all the metrics, rankings for other universities fluctuated depending on the metric and whether or not the top contributing faculty member was included. Implications for both students and faculty members with respect to graduate studies are discussed.

Predictors of student satisfaction in a large psychology undergraduate program.

“…Although there have been several recent studies examining psychology graduate programs in Canada (Bedi, 2016; Carleton, Peluso, & Asmundson, 2010; Farrell et al, 2016; Votta-Bleeker, Tiessen, & Murdoch, 2016), psychology undergraduate programs and students have received relatively little attention. The purpose of the present study was to identify the factors that are associated with students’ satisfaction with their psychology undergraduate program.…”

Research productivity and impact of professors in Canadian undergraduate psychology programmes.

“…As researchers in small departments are less likely to coauthor with graduate students, future researchers may look into how multiple authorship may affect publication rates and impact. Carleton et al (2010) examined departmental differences in research productivity and impact but not research field differences, whereas other studies examined research productivity and impact within a specific field in psychology (e.g., developmental in Farrell et al, 2016; clinical in Carleton et al, 2012). Given the present results, future researchers may examine if research field differences in research productivity and impact are evident in larger samples of professors working in research-oriented universities and if such research field differences exist between men and women.…”

“…Several databases have been used in previous research on research productivity and impact norms in psychology in Canada and the United States: Web of Science (Carleton et al, 2010; Carleton et al, 2012), Scopus (Watkins & Chan-Park, 2015), Google Scholar (Farrell et al, 2016; Nosek et al, 2010; Watkins & Chan-Park, 2015), and PsycInfo (Joy, 2006; Matson et al, 2005). In the present study, the Web of Science database was used because of its comprehensive coverage in subject areas and in retrospective time span, and the PsycInfo database was used because of its focused coverage in psychology.…”

“…In Canada, Buss (1976) and Endler (1977) first tallied the number of publications and the number of citations in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index to measure the quantity and the quality of research or scientific contributions of psychology departments and individual faculty members. Several recent published studies have begun to establish such normative data for research-oriented departments: graduate psychology programmes in Canada (Carleton et al, 2010), graduate programmes in developmental psychology in Canadian departments (Farrell et al, 2016), social psychology graduate programmes in both U.S. and Canadian psychology departments (Nosek et al, 2010), and individual professors in Canadian clinical psychology programmes accredited by the Canadian Psychology Association (Carleton et al, 2012) and by the APA (Matson et al, 2005). Not surprisingly, academic rank has been reported to be a significant factor in research productivity and impact (Carleton et al, 2012; McCutcheon & Morrison, 2016).…”