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Research production in the arts and humanities

A questionnaire study of factors influencing research performance

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Abstract

This study explored the main factors influencing the research production in the arts and humanities. A questionnaire was constructed to identify and assess the effects of various factors important for the productivity of the individual researcher as reflected in the number of papers and Ph.D.'s produced. First, respondents were given the opportunity to list in their own words a number of important factors influencing research productivity. Secondly, they evaluated on rating scales the importance of a number of pre-selected factors (e.g. individual characteristics, organisational features, external factors) assumed to be important for research productivity. 50% of a sample of 256 researchers in the humanities responded. Ratings were grouped to produce a number of indices and these were subject to multiple regression analyses. The main results showed that the production of papers was predicted by the number of Ph.D.'s produced and inversely related to the importance of organisational factors. The production of Ph.D.'s was dependent on the year of the Ph.D. and the position of the respondent as well as on the number of papers s/he produced. A number of conclusions were drawn: a) there was support for the academic social position effect also in the humanities; b) organisational factors apparently played a minor role in comparison to individual characteristics in the humanities than in the sciences and; c) the differences in productivity of papers were also related to gender, but not to size, area or language of publications. Implications for further studies were suggested.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Haraldsgatan 1, S-413 14, Göteborg, (Sweden)

    S. Hemlin & M. Gustafsson

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  1. S. Hemlin
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  2. M. Gustafsson
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Additional information

This work was supported by a grant from the Council for Studies of Higher Education and finished while the first author was a Visiting Research Fellow at SPRU, University of Sussex, 1995. I wish to thankBen R. Martin, SPRU, University of Sussex andAnton Nederhof, CWTS, Leiden University for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper which was presented at the workshop Studies on the Arts and Humanities and the Social Sciences, at SPRU, University of Sussex, 30 May, 1995.

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Hemlin, S., Gustafsson, M. Research production in the arts and humanities. Scientometrics 37, 417–432 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02019256

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