Exploring Off-the-Shelf Data in Job Design: A Comparison of Metadata in Situation Awareness, Task Analysis and Data Visualization

Abstract

AbstractThis work presents a comparative analysis of three topics of interest in job design and three databases – Google Scholar, Scopus, and Crossref. The initial comparison is done using metadata indicating similarities and differences in the number of articles, relevance, popularity, trend, and other such factors sthat impact the research, a publication or its authors. These databases are commonly available to researchers. They are referred to here as ‘off-the-shelf’ and were not designed for this analysis. The study is conducted for the job design-related topics, Situation Awareness, Task Analysis and Data Visualization and were taken from the ‘Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 5th edition. The topics selected are also of interest to researchers specializing in human-computer interaction. Bibliometric and statistical analysis were conducted for the articles using the dataset exported from Harzing’s software. Using Microsoft Excel and Minitab inferences were drawn following analysis. The study checked for overlapping of authors from the chosen articles and the prescribed handbook selections and results were reported. The regression modeling included in analysis extends methodology beyond prior literature that showed metadata comparisons by observation using descriptive statistics. An illustration is shown that demonstrates differences in key articles of interest identified by search. Key articles identified in Scopus had the highest number of citations. In addition to differences that can be seen in numbers of articles and numbers of citations using the metadata from these databases, it should be noted that the articles of interest that may be identified or recognized by scholars with interest in the topic may also be different. From prior research, it was expected that many articles that were found in both Google Scholar and Scopus would have a higher number of citations in Google Scholar. However, articles of interest that were identified in Scopus had more citations in Google Scholar. This was the significant result found when comparing samples with known variance (Z = −157, p < 0.0001). Articles of interest found in Scopus had more citations in Google Scholar than the articles of interest identified in Google Scholar. This suggests researchers should diversify their search among databases when conducting ergonomics and HCI-related literature reviews especially in the early stages of their research. The effort to diversify search can help early career researchers identify more impactful articles.KeywordsBibliometric analysisErgonomicsJob designHCIHuman factors