Gender differences in research areas, methods and topics: Can people and thing orientations explain the results?

Black Women in Medical Education Publishing: Bibliometric and Testimonio Accounts Using Intersectionality Methodology

BACKGROUND

Black women in academic medicine experience racial and gender discrimination, all while being tasked with improving a flawed system. Representation of Black women in medicine remains low, yet they bear the burden of fostering diversity and mentoring trainees, exacerbating their minority tax and emotional labor, and negatively impacting career progression.

OBJECTIVE

To complement qualitative accounts of Black women authors in the medical education literature with a quantitative account of their representation. We used statistical modeling to estimate the representation of Black women authors in medical education publishing as compared to other groups.

DESIGN

An intersectional methodology employing bibliometric analysis and testimonio reflection.

SUBJECTS

US-based authors of journal articles published in medical education journals between 2000 and 2020.

MAIN MEASURES

Author race was determined using a probability-based algorithm incorporating US Census data, and author gender was ascribed using Social Security Administration records. We conducted two negative binomial generalized linear models by first and last author publications. Metadata for each article was retrieved from Web of Science and PubMed to include author names, country of institutional affiliation, and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Results were contextualized via the "testimonio" account of a Black woman author.

KEY RESULTS

Of 21,945 unique authors, Black women (and other racially minoritized groups) published far fewer first and last author papers than white women and men. In addition, major MeSH terms used by Black women authors reveal little overlap with highly ranked medical education topics. The testimonio further narrated struggles with belonging and racial identity.

CONCLUSION

This study revealed that Black women are underrepresented in medical education publishing. We believe that dismantling oppressive structures in the publishing ecosystem and the field is imperative for achieving equity. Additionally, further experiential accounts are needed to contextualize this quantitative account and understand underrepresentation in medical education publishing.

Comparison of Implant-Retained Overdenture and Conventional Complete Denture: A Survey Study to Measure Patients' Satisfaction and Quality of Life in Dental School Clinics

Patient satisfaction and quality of life are integral to assessing oral health care quality. For many Americans still using conventional complete dentures (CDs) or implant-retained mandibular overdentures (IODs), it remains essential to consider improving their oral health outcomes and quality of life. Due to inexperienced student dentists providing dental care to dental school patients, patient grievances are generally considered a problem. Patient feedback and satisfaction have proven valuable resources for monitoring and improving patient safety. While CDs and IODs are the 2 leading treatment options for edentulism, more comparative studies in the literature need to compare their outcomes in a school setting. The research question that guided this comparative analysis was, "Is patient satisfaction and quality of life affected by the type of prostheses and provider?" A validated questionnaire was mailed to 520 individuals selected from records of patients who had received treatment for edentulous mandible at a student prosthodontic clinic at the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry from 2014 to 2016 with at least 1 year of follow-up time. A validated questionnaire for edentulous patients based on the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-19) was used. In addition, information on patients' oral health-related quality of life, including questions related to the edentulous patients' satisfaction with their dentures, was collected. The response rate was 33% (N = 171). The study's findings confirm previous findings, suggesting that IODs may significantly impact oral health-related quality of life. Data show that 76% of the IOD group reported improvement in experience when using the implants to retain the mandibular denture. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the OHIP scores between overall CD and IOD patient groups. Males with IODs had lower physical pain, limitations, and disability scores than males with CD. However, females with IODs reported more significant concerns associated with a social disability and handicap domains. Comparing users who had experiences with both treatment options, this study discerned essential characteristics that contribute to increased patient satisfaction with IODs and identified significance in outcomes by gender. These findings guide prosthodontic practitioners' patient care practices and identify a continuing need to discuss CD and IOD treatment protocols within dental school curricula.

The perceived role fit of women and men academics: evidence from the social sports sciences

Introduction

The underrepresentation of women in academia is often explained by the presence of gender stereotypes and the perception that women fit the role of an academic to a lesser extent. Based on social role theory and role congruity theory, this study investigates and estimates the perceived role fit of women and men academics in the social sports sciences.

Methods

Data were collected with a quantitative online survey. The sample (n = 792) includes individuals who study or work in sports economics, sport management, or sport sociology (referred to as social sports sciences). The questionnaire included items that reflect attributes of an ideal-typical academic as well as women and men academics in four dimensions, i.e., leadership, research methods, media visibility, and research topics. In the first step, these items were used to estimate a total role fit index for both women and men academics, as well as indices for all dimensions. In a second step, regression analyses were used to examine how respondents' individual characteristics (e.g., discipline, career stage, gender, presence of role models) are related to their perceived role fit indices and the differences in the perceived role fit.

Results and discussion

The role fit index ranges from 0 to 1, and women have a higher total role fit than men (0.77 vs. 0.75). The results suggest that women in the social sports sciences are perceived as a better fit for the role of an academic. In contrast to role congruity theory, women's leadership fit is higher than men's fit in this dimension (0.79 vs. 0.72). Regarding the associations of individual characteristics, professors seem to perceive a lower role fit for both genders than students. Furthermore, the difference between the perceived role fit of men and women is smaller for women respondents. Having a woman role model leads to a higher fit of women academics in the leadership dimension.

Gender gaps in Australian research publishing, citation and co-authorship

Despite improvement in gender inequality in Australian science, the problem has not been fully addressed yet. To better understand the nature of gender inequality in Australian science, all gendered Australian first authored articles published between 2010 and 2020 and indexed in the Dimensions database were analysed. Field of Research (FoR) was used as the subject classification of articles and Field Citation Ratio (FCR) was used for citation comparison. Overall, the ratio of female to male first authored articles increased over the years, and this was true for all FoRs except for information and computing sciences. The ratio of single-authored articles by females was also improved over the study period. Females appeared to have a citation advantage, using Field Citation Ratio, over males in a few FoRs including mathematical sciences, chemical sciences, technology, built environment and design, studies in human society, law and legal studies, and studies in creative arts and writing. The average FCR for female first authored articles was greater than the average FCR for male first authored articles, including in a few fields such mathematical sciences where male authors outperformed females in terms of the number of articles.

The gender gap in political psychology

Introduction

I investigated the authorship gender gap in research on political psychology.

Methods

The material comprises 1,166 articles published in the field's flagship journal Political Psychology between 1997 and 2021. These were rated for author gender, methodology, purpose, and topic.

Results

Women were underrepresented as authors (37.1% women), single authors (33.5% women), and lead authors (35.1% women). There were disproportionately many women lead authors in papers employing interviews or qualitative methodology, and in research with an applied purpose (these were all less cited). In contrast, men were overrepresented as authors of papers employing quantitative methods. Regarding topics, women were overrepresented as authors on Gender, Identity, Culture and Language, and Religion, and men were overrepresented as authors on Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology.

Discussion

The (denigrated) methods, purposes, and topics of women doing research on politics correspond to the (denigrated) "feminine style" of women doing politics grounding knowledge in the concrete, lived reality of others; listening and giving voice to marginalized groups' subjective experiences; and yielding power to get things done for others.

Peculiarities of gender disambiguation and ordering of non-English authors’ names for Economic papers beyond core databases①

Purpose

To supplement the quantitative portrait of Ukrainian Economics discipline with the results of gender and author ordering analysis at the level of individual authors, special methods of working with bibliographic data with a predominant share of non-English authors are used. The properties of gender mixing, the likelihood of male and female authors occupying the first position in the authorship list, as well as the arrangements of names are studied.

Design/methodology/approach

A data set containing bibliographic records related to Ukrainian journal publications in the field of Economics is constructed using Crossref meta-data. Partial semi-automatic disambiguation of authors’ names is performed. First names, along with gender-specific ethnic surnames, are used for gender disambiguation required for further comparative gender analysis. Random reshuffling of data is used to determine the impact of gender correlations. To assess the level of alphabetization for our data set, both Latin and Cyrillic versions of names are taken into account.

Findings

The lack of well-structured metadata and the poor use of digital identifiers lead to numerous problems with automatization of bibliographic data pre-processing, especially in the case of publications by non-Western authors. The described stages for working with such specific data help to work at the level of authors and analyse, in particular, gender issues. Despite the larger number of female authors, gender equality is more likely to be reported at the individual level for the discipline of Ukrainian Economics. The tendencies towards collaborative or solo-publications and gender mixing patterns are found to be dependent on the journal: the differences for publications indexed in Scopus and/or Web of Science databases are found. It has also been found that Ukrainian Economics research is characterized by rather a non-alphabetical order of authors.

Research limitations

Only partial authors’ name disambiguation is performed in a semi-automatic way. Gender labels can be derived only for authors declared by full First names or gender-specific Last names.

Practical implications

The typical features of Ukrainian Economic discipline can be used to perform a comparison with other countries and disciplines, to develop an informed-based assessment procedure at the national level. The proposed way of processing publication data can be borrowed to enrich metadata about other research disciplines, especially for non-English speaking countries.

Originality/value

To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale quantitative study of Ukrainian Economic discipline. The results obtained are valuable not only at the national level, but also contribute to general knowledge about Economic research, gender issues, and authors’ names ordering. An example of the use of Crossref data is provided, while this data source is still less used due to a number of drawbacks. Here, for the first time, attention is drawn to the explicit use of the features of the Slavic authors’ names.

Further Divided Gender Gaps in Research Productivity and Collaboration during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Coronavirus-related Literature

Based on publication data on coronavirus-related fields, this study applies a difference in differences approach to explore the evolution of gender inequalities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing the differences in the numbers and shares of authorships, leadership in publications, gender composition of collaboration, and scientific impacts. We find that, during the pandemic: (1) females’ leadership in publications as the first author was negatively affected; (2) although both females and males published more papers relative to the pre-pandemic period, the gender gaps in the share of authorships have been strengthened due to the larger increase in males’ authorships; (3) the share of publications by mixed-gender collaboration declined; (4) papers by teams in which females play a key role were less cited in the pre-pandemic period, and this citation disadvantage was exacerbated during the pandemic; and (5) gender inequalities regarding authorships and collaboration were enhanced in the initial stage of COVID-19, widened with the increasing severity of COVID-19, and returned to the pre-pandemic level in September 2020. This study shows that females’ lower participation in teams as major contributors and less collaboration with their male colleagues also reflect their underrepresentation in science in the pandemic period. This investigation significantly deepens our understanding of how the pandemic influenced academia, based on which science policies and gender policy changes are proposed to mitigate the gender gaps.

Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap

In solo research, scientists compete individually for prestige, sending clear signals about their research ability, avoiding problems in credit allocation, and reducing conflicts about authorship. We examine to what extent male and female scientists differ in their use of solo publishing across various dimensions. This research is the first to comprehensively study the “gender solo research gap” among all internationally visible scientists within a whole national higher education system. We examine the gap through mean “individual solo publishing rates” found in “individual publication portfolios” constructed for each Polish university professor. We use the practical significance/statistical significance difference (based on the effect-size r coefficient) and our analyses indicate that while some gender differences are statistically significant, they have no practical significance. Using a partial effects of fractional logistic regression approach, we estimate the probability of conducting solo research. In none of the models does gender explain the variability of the individual solo publishing rate. The strongest predictor of individual solo publishing rate is the average team size, publishing in STEM fields negatively affects the rate, publishing in male-dominated disciplines positively affects it, and the influence of international collaboration is negative. The gender solo research gap in Poland is much weaker than expected: within a more general trend toward team research and international research, gender differences in solo research are much weaker and less relevant than initially assumed. We use our unique biographical, administrative, publication, and citation database (“Polish Science Observatory”) with metadata on all Polish scientists present in Scopus (N = 25,463) and their 158,743 Scopus-indexed articles published in 2009–2018, including 18,900 solo articles.

Can the quality of published academic journal articles be assessed with machine learning?

Formal assessments of the quality of the research produced by departments and universities are now conducted by many countries to monitor achievements and allocate performance-related funding. These evaluations are hugely time consuming if conducted by post-publication peer review and are simplistic if based on citations or journal impact factors. This article investigates whether machine learning could help reduce the burden of peer review by using citations and metadata to learn how to score articles from a sample assessed by peer review. An experiment is used to underpin the discussion, attempting to predict journal citation thirds, as a proxy for article quality scores, for all Scopus narrow fields from 2014 to 2020. The results show that these proxy quality thirds can be predicted with above baseline accuracy in all 326 narrow fields, with Gradient Boosting Classifier, Random Forest Classifier, or Multinomial Naïve Bayes being the most accurate in nearly all cases. Nevertheless, the results partly leverage journal writing styles and topics, which are unwanted for some practical applications and cause substantial shifts in average scores between countries and between institutions within a country. There may be scope for predicting articles scores when the predictions have the highest probability.

Peer Review

https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00185

Small female citation advantages for US journal articles in medicine

Female under-representation continues in senior roles within academic medicine, potentially influenced by a perception that female research has less citation impact. This article provides systematic evidence of (a) female participation rates from the perspective of published journal articles in 46 Scopus medical subject categories 1996–2018 and (b) gender differences in citation rates 1996–2014. The results show female proportion increases 1996–2018 in all fields and a female majority of first-authored articles in two-fifths of categories, but substantial differences between fields. A paper is 7.3 times more likely to have a female first author in Obstetrics and Gynaecology than in Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. Only three fields had a female last author majority by 2018, a probable side effect of ongoing problems with appointing female leaders. Female first-authored research tended to be more cited than male first-authored research in most fields (59%), although with a maximum difference of only 5.1% (log-transformed normalised citations). In contrast, male last-authored research tends to be more cited than female last-authored research, perhaps due to cases where a senior male has attracted substantial funding for a project. These differences increase if team sizes are not accounted for in the calculations. Since female first-authored research is cited slightly more than male first-authored research, properly analysed bibliometric data considering career gaps should not disadvantage female candidates for senior roles.

Producción científica en el campo de los estudios de género: análisis de revistas seleccionadas de Web of Science (2008-2018)

La siguiente investigación analiza las publicaciones científicas de estudios de género a nivel mundial en revistas seleccionadas indexadas en Web of Science (WOS) entre 2008 y 2018. Los objetivos son indagar sobre la dinámica de participación de las y los autores dentro de esta área de conocimiento y que tópicos investigan, por separado y en conjunto. Para esto, se utilizan algoritmos de clasificación de sexo y de modelado de tópicos. Los resultados muestran que los estudios de género son una de las áreas de investigación más feminizadas y por ende con mayor brecha de género, además destacan que no hubo cambios relevantes dentro del periodo analizado. Los tópicos identificados permiten segmentar los tipos de autoría: ellas se especializan en feminismo, política, violencia, entre otros, ellos no tienen ninguna especialización y la autoría en conjunto lo hace en áreas asociadas a la medicina/salud y estadística/metodología.

Diversifying history: A large-scale analysis of changes in researcher demographics and scholarly agendas

BACKGROUND

In recent years, interest has grown in whether and to what extent demographic diversity sparks discovery and innovation in research. At the same time, topic modeling has been employed to discover differences in what women and men write about. This study engages these two strands of scholarship to explore associations between changing researcher demographics and research questions asked in the discipline of history. Specifically, we analyze developments in history as women entered the field.

METHODS

We focus on author gender in diachronic analysis of history dissertations from 1980 (when online data is first available) to 2015 and a select set of general history journals from 1950 to 2015. We use correlated topic modeling and network visualizations to map developments in research agendas over time and to examine how women and men have contributed to these developments.

RESULTS

Our summary snapshot of aggregate interests of women and men for the period 1950 to 2015 identifies new topics associated with women authors: gender and women's history, body history, family and households, consumption and consumerism, and sexuality. Diachronic analysis demonstrates that while women pioneered topics such as gender and women's history or the history of sexuality, these topics broaden over time to become methodological frameworks that historians widely embraced and that changed in interesting ways as men engaged with them. Our analysis of history dissertations surface correlations between advisor/advisee gender pairings and choice of dissertation topic.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, this quantitative longitudinal study suggests that the growth in women historians has coincided with the broadening of research agendas and an increased sensitivity to new topics and methodologies in the field.

Content Analysis of Patent Applications for Strength Training Equipment Filed in the United States Before 1980

ABSTRACT

Nuzzo, JL. Content analysis of patent applications for strength training equipment filed in the United States before 1980. J Strength Cond Res 35(10): 2952-2962, 2021-Strength training history is an emerging academic area. The aim of the current study was to describe quantitively the history of inventions for strength training equipment. Content analysis was conducted of patent applications for strength training equipment filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office before 1980. Applications were identified using relevant keyword searches in Google Patents. A total of 551 patent applications were analyzed. The earliest application identified was filed in 1860. Applications never exceed 6 per year until 1961 after which applications increased substantially, with a peak of 54 in 1979. Men invented 98.7% of all strength training devices. Lloyd J. Lambert, Jr. was the most prolific inventor, with 10 inventions. Types of inventions included mobile units (34.5%), stationary machines (27.9%), dumbbells (16%), racks or benches (8.0%), barbells (6.7%), and Indian clubs (3.8%). Common features included seats or benches (18.7%), cable-pulley systems (15.1%), weight stacks (8.2%), weight trays (4.5%), and cams (2.2%). Common types of resistance included weights or plates (33.2%), springs (11.6%), friction (9.1%), elastic bands (5.3%), and hydraulic (3.8%). Proposed invention benefits included adjustable resistance (37.4%), inexpensive (36.1%), simple to use (32.8%), compact design or easy storage (27.0%), multiple exercise options (26.1%), safety and comfort (25.4%), effectiveness (23.6%), portability (20.5%), adjustable size (15.8%), sturdiness or durability (15.8%), home use (13.6%), and light weight (13.6%). Certain aspects of strength training equipment have evolved over time. However, overall purposes and benefits of inventions have remained constant (e.g., affordability, convenience, personalization, safety, and effectiveness).

Gender differences in dentistry: A qualitative study on students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for entering dentistry at higher education

INTRODUCTION

Having a balanced gender distribution is thought to ensure the diversity of knowledge and know-how and take better into account the different needs in society. The aim of the study is to explore and understand possible gender differences in (a) the students' motivational spectrum to choose a dental education and (b) their prospect of a professional career in dentistry.

METHODS

We conducted in-depth interviews with male and female dental students (n = 14) followed by a theoretical reading based on Self-Determination Theory to explore the students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for entering dentistry in Denmark.

RESULTS

Regardless gender, the dental students are motivated by role models, people orientation and strong interest in health sciences, but prefer dentistry to medicine, because of the responsibilities and working conditions. They were also motivated by the dental school's combination of theory and practice in students' learning of craftsmanship. Moreover, students valued the prospect of job security and a good work-life balance. However, there were markedly gender differences in motivation in relation to financial incentives as well as working life and career as a dentist, as it seemed that dental students needed gendered relatedness in relation to specialisation and employment in public versus private sector.

CONCLUSION

The motivational spectrum varies widely, regardless of gender. In line with the standpoint feminist theory, a balanced gender distribution in dental education helps to meet the different needs in society and labour market. Consequently, a gender-sensitive recruitment strategy reflecting the gender differences in identities, knowledge and interests will be needed.

Sexual Dimorphism in Language, and the Gender Shift Hypothesis of Homosexuality

Psychological sex differences have been studied scientifically for more than a century, yet linguists still debate about the existence, magnitude, and causes of such differences in language use. Advances in psychology and cognitive neuroscience have shown the importance of sex and sexual orientation for various psychobehavioural traits, but the extent to which such differences manifest in language use is largely unexplored. Using computerised text analysis (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count: LIWC 2015), this study found substantial psycholinguistic sexual dimorphism in a large corpus of English-language novels (n = 304) by heterosexual authors. The psycholinguistic sex differences largely aligned with known psychological sex differences, such as empathising–systemising, people–things orientation, and men’s more pronounced spatial cognitive styles and abilities. Furthermore, consistent with predictions from cognitive neuroscience, novels (n = 158) by lesbian authors showed minor signs of psycholinguistic masculinisation, while novels (n = 167) by homosexual men had a female-typical psycholinguistic pattern, supporting the gender shift hypothesis of homosexuality. The findings on this large corpus of 66.9 million words indicate how psychological group differences based on sex and sexual orientation manifest in language use in two centuries of literary art.

Gender issues in fundamental physics: A bibliometric analysis

I analyze bibliometric data about fundamental physics worldwide from 1970 to now, extracting quantitative data about gender issues. I do not find significant gender differences in hiring rates, hiring timing, career gaps and slowdowns, abandonment rates, citation, and self-citation patterns. Furthermore, various bibliometric indicators (number of fractionally counted papers, citations, etc.) exhibit a productivity gap at hiring moments, at career level, and without integrating over careers. The gap persists after accounting for confounding factors and manifests as an increasing fraction of male authors going from average to top authors in terms of bibliometric indices, with a quantitative shape that can be fitted by higher male variability.

Male, Female, and Nonbinary Differences in UK Twitter Self-descriptions: A Fine-grained Systematic Exploration

Purpose

Although gender identities influence how people present themselves on social media, previous studies have tested pre-specified dimensions of difference, potentially overlooking other differences and ignoring nonbinary users.

Design/methodology/approach

Word association thematic analysis was used to systematically check for fine-grained statistically significant gender differences in Twitter profile descriptions between 409,487 UK-based female, male, and nonbinary users in 2020. A series of statistical tests systematically identified 1,474 differences at the individual word level, and a follow up thematic analysis grouped these words into themes.

Findings

The results reflect offline variations in interests and in jobs. They also show differences in personal disclosures, as reflected by words, with females mentioning qualifications, relationships, pets, and illnesses much more, nonbinaries discussing sexuality more, and males declaring political and sports affiliations more. Other themes were internally imbalanced, including personal appearance (e.g. male: beardy; female: redhead), self-evaluations (e.g. male: legend; nonbinary: witch; female: feisty), and gender identity (e.g. male: dude; nonbinary: enby; female: queen).

Research limitations

The methods are affected by linguistic styles and probably under-report nonbinary differences.

Practical implications

The gender differences found may inform gender theory, and aid social web communicators and marketers.

Originality/value

The results show a much wider range of gender expression differences than previously acknowledged for any social media site.

A gender equality paradox in academic publishing: Countries with a higher proportion of female first-authored journal articles have larger first-author gender disparities between fields

Current attempts to address the shortfall of female researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have not yet succeeded, despite other academic subjects having female majorities. This article investigates the extent to which gender disparities are subject-wide or nation-specific by a first-author gender comparison of 30 million articles from all 27 Scopus broad fields within the 31 countries with the most Scopus-indexed articles 2014–2018. The results show overall and geocultural patterns as well as individual national differences. Almost half of the subjects were always more male (seven; e.g., Mathematics) or always more female (six; e.g., Immunology & Microbiology) than the national average. A strong overall trend (Spearman correlation 0.546) is for countries with a higher proportion of female first-authored research to also have larger differences in gender disparities between fields (correlation 0.314 for gender ratios). This confirms the international gender equality paradox previously found for degree subject choices: Increased gender equality overall associates with moderately greater gender differentiation between subjects. This is consistent with previous United States-based claims that gender differences in academic careers are partly due to (socially constrained) gender differences in personal preferences. Radical solutions may therefore be needed for some STEM subjects to overcome gender disparities.

Greater female first author citation advantages do not associate with reduced or reducing gender disparities in academia

Ongoing problems attracting women into many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects have many potential explanations. This article investigates whether the possible undercitation of women associates with lower proportions of, or increases in, women in a subject. It uses six million articles published in 1996–2012 across up to 331 fields in six mainly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The proportion of female first- and last-authored articles in each year was calculated and 4,968 regressions were run to detect first-author gender advantages in field normalized article citations. The proportion of female first authors in each field correlated highly between countries and the female first-author citation advantages derived from the regressions correlated moderately to strongly between countries, so both are relatively field specific. There was a weak tendency in the United States and New Zealand for female citation advantages to be stronger in fields with fewer women, after excluding small fields, but there was no other association evidence. There was no evidence of female citation advantages or disadvantages to be a cause or effect of changes in the proportions of women in a field for any country. Inappropriate uses of career-level citations are a likelier source of gender inequities.

All downhill from the PhD? The typical impact trajectory of U.S. academic careers

Within academia, mature researchers tend to be more senior, but do they also tend to write higher impact articles? This article assesses long-term publishing (16+ years) United States (U.S.) researchers, contrasting them with shorter-term publishing researchers (1, 6, or 10 years). A long-term U.S. researcher is operationalized as having a first Scopus-indexed journal article in exactly 2001 and one in 2016–2019, with U.S. main affiliations in their first and last articles. Researchers publishing in large teams (11+ authors) were excluded. The average field and year normalized citation impact of long- and shorter-term U.S. researchers’ journal articles decreases over time relative to the national average, with especially large falls for the last articles published, which may be at least partly due to a decline in self-citations. In many cases researchers start by publishing above U.S. average citation impact research and end by publishing below U.S. average citation impact research. Thus, research managers should not assume that senior researchers will usually write the highest impact papers.

Unterscheiden sich die Forschungsinteressen von Frauen und Männern in der Psychologie?

Zusammenfassung. Auf die Mitte der 1990er Jahre angestoßene Debatte über den steigenden Frauenanteil unter den Psychologiestudierenden folgte eine Reihe von Studien, welche unter anderem geschlechtsspezifische Interessenschwerpunkte untersuchten. Bis heute zeigt sich zu solchen Präferenzen ein insgesamt gemischtes Bild und es liegt noch keine umfassende Untersuchung über einen größeren Zeitraum vor. Daher wurde untersucht, (1) ob sich die Forschungsinteressen von promovierenden Frauen und Männern in der Psychologie unterscheiden und (2) welche zeitlichen Trends hierbei ausgemacht werden können. Analysiert wurden 17 971 in der psychologischen Referenzdatenbank PSYNDEX nachgewiesene Dissertationen aus dem deutschen Sprachraum der Jahre 1968 bis 2017. Die individuellen Forschungsinteressen wurden anhand standardisierter Schlagwörter der Dissertationen mit Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) identifiziert. Zeitliche Trends wurden mit Multilayer Perceptrons (MLP) untersucht. Es konnten 48 Interessenbereiche identifiziert werden, wobei sich nur in zwei Bereichen zeitlich konstant größere Unterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern zeigten: „Mutter-Kind-Beziehung und Entwicklung im Kleinkindalter“ wurde mit einer höheren Wahrscheinlichkeit von Frauen, „Statistik und Methoden“ stärker von Männern adressiert. Weitere Unterschiede unterlagen zeitlichen Schwankungen. Die Befunde stützen insgesamt die Annahme, dass die Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Frauen und Männern überwiegen. Eine englische Übersetzung als Rohfassung dieses Artikels finden Sie als Elektronisches Supplement 1.

Gender differences in citation impact for 27 fields and six English-speaking countries 1996–2014

Initiatives addressing the lack of women in many academic fields, and the general lack of senior women, need to be informed about the causes of any gender differences that may affect career progression, including citation impact. Previous research about gender differences in journal article citation impact has found the direction of any difference to vary by country and field, but has usually avoided discussions of the magnitude and wider significance of any differences and has not been systematic in terms of fields and/or time. This study investigates differences in citation impact between male and female first-authored research for 27 broad fields and six large English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA) from 1996 to 2014. The results show an overall female first author citation advantage, although in most broad fields it is reversed in all countries for some years. International differences include Medicine having a female first author citation advantage for all years in Australia, but a male citation advantage for most years in Canada. There was no general trend for the gender difference to increase or decrease over time. The average effect size is small, however, and unlikely to have a substantial influence on overall gender differences in researcher careers.

Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies

Scopus is among the largest curated abstract and citation databases, with a wide global and regional coverage of scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books, while ensuring only the highest quality data are indexed through rigorous content selection and re-evaluation by an independent Content Selection and Advisory Board. Additionally, extensive quality assurance processes continuously monitor and improve all data elements in Scopus. Besides enriched metadata records of scientific articles, Scopus offers comprehensive author and institution profiles, obtained from advanced profiling algorithms and manual curation, ensuring high precision and recall. The trustworthiness of Scopus has led to its use as bibliometric data source for large-scale analyses in research assessments, research landscape studies, science policy evaluations, and university rankings. Scopus data have been offered for free for selected studies by the academic research community, such as through application programming interfaces, which have led to many publications employing Scopus data to investigate topics such as researcher mobility, network visualizations, and spatial bibliometrics. In June 2019, the International Center for the Study of Research was launched, with an advisory board consisting of bibliometricians, aiming to work with the scientometric research community and offering a virtual laboratory where researchers will be able to utilize Scopus data.

Authorship and citation gender trends in immunology and microbiology

Immunology and microbiology research are essential for human and animal health. Unlike many other health fields, they do not usually centre around the curing or helping individual patients but focus on the microscopic scale instead. These fields are interesting from a gender perspective because two theories seeking to explain gender differences in career choices in the USA (people/things and communal/agentic goals) might produce conflicting expectations about their gender balances. This article assesses the gender shares of journal articles and gendered citation rates of five subfields of the Scopus Immunology and Microbiology broad category 1996-2014/18, for research with solely US author affiliations. Only Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (38% female) had not reached gender parity in publishing by 2018. There was a female first author citation advantage in Parasitology but a disadvantage in Immunology. Immunology, Parasitology and Virology, had female last author citation disadvantages, but all gender effects were much smaller (<5%) than that of an extra author (10%-56%). Citation differences cannot therefore account for the current underrepresentation of women in senior roles.

Author gender differences in psychology citation impact 1996-2018

Academic psychology in the USA is a gender success story in terms of overturning its early male dominance but there are still relatively few senior female psychology researchers. To assess whether there are gender differences in citation impact that might help to explain either of these trends, this study investigates psychology articles since 1996. Seven out of eight Scopus psychology categories had a majority of female first-authored journal articles by 2018. From regression analyses of first and last author gender and team size, female first authors associate with a slightly higher average citation impact, but extra authors have a 10 times stronger association with higher average citation impact. Last author gender has little association with citation impact. Female first authors are more likely to be in larger teams and if team size is attributed to the first author's work, then their apparent influence of female first authors on citation impact doubles. While gender differences in average citation impact are too small to account for gender-related trends in academic psychology, they warn that male-dominated citation-based ranking lists of psychologists do not reflect the state of psychology research today.

The reading background of Goodreads book club members: a female fiction canon?

Purpose

Despite the social, educational and therapeutic benefits of book clubs, little is known about which books participants are likely to have read. In response, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the public bookshelves of those that have joined a group within the Goodreads social network site.

Design/methodology/approach

Books listed as read by members of 50 large English-language Goodreads groups – with a genre focus or other theme – were compiled by author and title.

Findings

Recent and youth-oriented fiction dominate the 50 books most read by book club members, whilst almost half are works of literature frequently taught at the secondary and postsecondary level (literary classics). Whilst J.K. Rowling is almost ubiquitous (at least 63 per cent as frequently listed as other authors in any group, including groups for other genres), most authors, including Shakespeare (15 per cent), Goulding (6 per cent) and Hemmingway (9 per cent), are little read by some groups. Nor are individual recent literary prize winners or works in languages other than English frequently read.

Research limitations/implications

Although these results are derived from a single popular website, knowing more about what book club members are likely to have read should help participants, organisers and moderators. For example, recent literary prize winners might be a good choice, given that few members may have read them.

Originality/value

This is the first large scale study of book group members’ reading patterns. Whilst typical reading is likely to vary by group theme and average age, there seems to be a mainly female canon of about 14 authors and 19 books that Goodreads book club members are likely to have read.