Productivity and scholarly impact (citations) of British, Canadian, and U.S. departments of psychology (1975)

Evaluated the psychology departments at 180 universities in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the US in terms of their productivity and the impact of their scholarly research. The 1975 Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) was used as the basis for counting both citations of and publications by each of the 5,597 faculty members. Psychologists at the 180 evaluated departments received a total of 76,189 citations in 1975 (mean 13.6) and produced a total of 4,977 publications (mean .89). Data are presented for the top 100 departments: total, mean, and median number of citations of each department as well as the total and mean number of publications. The citation measures correlated more highly with reputational ranks taken on 76 American schools in an earlier study than did the publication measures. The departments of psychology at 4 universities were consistently in the top 8 on the total, mean, and median citation measures of scholarly impact: Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania. 18 of the top 100 departments in terms of total citations were from either Canada or the United Kingdom. Methodological difficulties in using the SSCI and possible uses and limitations of citation counts are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).