On the validity of citation counting in science evaluation: Content analyses of references and citations in psychological publications |
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Authors: | Günter Krampen Ralf Becker Ute Wahner Leo Montada |
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Affiliation: | (1) Department of Psychology and Institute for Psychology Information (ZPID), University of Trier, D-54286 Trier, Germany |
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Abstract: | In reference to the increasing significance of citation counting in evaluations of scientists and science institutes as well
as in science historiography, it is analyzed empirically what is cited in which frequency and what types of citations in scientific
texts are used. Content analyses refer to numbers of references, self-references, publication language of references cited,
publication types of references cited, and type of citation within the texts. Validity of citation counting is empirically
analyzed with reference to random samples of English and German journal articles as well as German textbooks, encyclopedias,
and test-manuals from psychology. Results show that 25% of all citations are perfunctory, more than 50% of references are
journal articles and up to 40% are books and book-chapters, 10% are self-references. Differences between publications from
various psychological sub-disciplines, publication languages, and types of publication are weak. Thus, validity of evaluative
citation counting is limited because at least one quarter refers to perfunctory citations exhibiting a very low information
utility level and by the fact that existing citation-databases refer to journal articles only. |
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