Research productivity, quality, and impact metrics of Australian psychology academics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: This project aimed to provide normative data from SciVal on the research outputs of Australian psychology academics. Normative data are presented by academic level, university network, and estimated career stage. Additional analyses identify which SciVal metrics (measured over a short time window) predict lifetime performance indicators. Method: Data from 749 psychology academics across 24 universities belonging to the various Australian university networks were extracted from Scopus and SciVal (a tool including metrics of recent research quantity, quality, and impact). Metrics included number of outputs and citations, citations per output, Field Weighted Citation Impact, percentage of outputs in the top 10% by citations or journal rank, and percentage of outputs with international or corporate collaborators. Results: Metrics related to quantity of outputs and citations increased with academic level and career stage. For other SciVal metrics, academics at the more senior levels (D and/or E) often outperformed Level B academics. Academics at Group of Eight universities tended to outperform academics affiliated with other networks by overall outputs and citations. These differences were less consistent for other SciVal metrics. A range of SciVal metrics predicted lifetime metrics. Conclusion: These data provide up-to-date norms to facilitate evaluation of Australian psychology academics using SciVal. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Metrics of research quantity, quality, and impact are increasingly influential in research evaluation. Recent norms for Australian psychology academics stratified by academic level and university affiliation were published by Mazzucchelli et al. (2019). These norms documented significant differences in publications, citations, and h-index for staff at different academic levels and across academics affiliated with different university networks. What this topic adds: This study provides up-to-date norms broken down by academic level, university network, and estimated career stage for a range of new metrics of research quantity, quality, and impact available from SciVal. Analyses are also conducted to identify which SciVal metrics (which are based on publications in the recent past) predict lifetime performance indicators. Senior academics generally outperformed junior academics on most metrics. Group of Eight academics outperformed academics affiliated with other university networks on metrics of raw outputs and citations, but not as consistently for other metrics. A number of SciVal metrics predict lifetime performance indicators.