Journal Adult Education - Bibliographic Data and Content Analysis of Published Articles (2001-2017)

Abstract

Journals represent the most prominent medium of formal scholarly communication, and therefore, evaluation of journals has become an important tool for researchers who publish novel research results as well as for those who wish to be up-todate with the current research streams. Within this context, the analysis of Journal Adult Education was conveyed aiming to identify changes that were brought in the editing process of the Journal from 2001 until 2017. This general research objective is further divided into two research tasks – bibliographic analysis and content analysis of the journal. On the basis of bibliometric method on the selected sample of contributions, presence (or omission) of the following identification bibliographic data were assessed: author name, article title, author’s institutional affiliation, author’s contact details; article’s UDC, abstract and key words in two languages; article title and reference list. Further analysis included also author’s country of origin. The second research task was aimed at content analysis of published articles, in particular, scholarly-professional communication in adult education, which reflects cognitive texture of the field. The focus of analysis was content elements such as: key words, thematic focus and the level of andragogical approach to the given phenomenon. The results indicate that the Journal has witnessed increase in the quality of data of article identification, that on the basis of larger representation of authors from the neighbouring countries it can be regarded as regional journal, but that it is still not thematically clearly defined. Andragogical approach in much regard is mixed with approaches of other disciplines, more or less congenial to it, even to a certain extent completely deviating from the logics of adult education.