Abstract
BackgroundThis study evaluates the success of graduate students in psychiatry in an emerging country, in terms of the quantity and quality of their publication productivity (given by the number of papers and impact factors of the journals in which they publish). We investigated to what extent student proficiency in English and the scientific capabilities of academic advisors predict that success.MethodsOur sample comprised 43 master’s and doctoral students in psychiatry (n = 28 and n = 15, respectively) at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine, in São Paulo, Brazil. We collected information about their knowledge of English and the ways in which they wrote their articles to be submitted to periodicals published in English. Multiple regression analyses were carried out in order to investigate the influence English proficiency, h-index of supervisors and use of language editing assistance had on the number and impact of student publications.ResultsAlthough 60% of students scored ≥80 (out of 100) on English tests given at admission to the graduate program, 93.09% of the sample used some form of external editing assistance to produce their papers in English. The variables “number of publications” and “impact factor of journals” were significantly related to each other (r = 0.550, p < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis revealed that the impact factor of periodicals where students published their articles as first authors correlated significantly not only with student proficiency in English at admission (p = 0.035), but also with the degree of language editing assistance (p = 0.050) and the h-index of the academic advisor (p = 0.050).ConclusionsAlbeit relevant, knowledge of English was not the key factor for the publication success of the graduate students evaluated. Other variables (h-index of the advisor and third-party language editing assistance) appear to be also important predictors of success in publication.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6920-14-238) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
This study evaluates the success of graduate students in psychiatry in an emerging country, in terms of the quantity and quality of their publication productivity
The present study aimed to evaluate the success of graduate students in psychiatry in Brazil, in terms of the quantity and quality of their publication productivity, investigating the influence that student proficiency in English and the scientific capabilities of academic advisors have on student ability to publish
The FMUSP Graduate Program in Psychiatry has objective rules regarding the publication of research results: students enrolled in the program can defend their theses only after they have submitted their results for publication in a journal indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI); and students cannot be awarded a doctorate if their results have not been accepted for publication in an ISI-indexed journal
Summary
This study evaluates the success of graduate students in psychiatry in an emerging country, in terms of the quantity and quality of their publication productivity (given by the number of papers and impact factors of the journals in which they publish). Qualitative investigations in the fields of applied linguistics and literacy education have highlighted the influence of other variables in the process of successfully publishing in English as a second language, including educational and cultural backgrounds, types of academic and social networks, persistence and other psychological processes, scientific training, editorial bias, global developments in the usage of English, geographical location and socio-economic resources [6,7,8,9]. The impact of a scientific journal, as measured by indices such as the average number of citations given to recently published articles, is frequently used to indicate the influence that a given periodical exerts in its field [12]. Academics who cannot master their writing expression in English put their careers as well as the science they produce at stake
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