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A study of factors affecting research productivity of Iranian women in ISI

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Abstract

Based on the fact that in terms of research productivity, performance of women is weaker than men’s, and because little is known on the factors affecting academic women’s productivity in Iran, the present article aims to study factors affecting research productivity of Iranian women in ISI. To do this, at first, women who have already had published documents indexed in ISI were identified through Web of Science. Afterwards, in order to collect their view regarding factors affecting women’s research productivity, a researcher-made questionnaire was used. To analyze the collected data, the statistical software SPSS (version 17) was used. Both descriptive (Percentage and Frequency) and inferential (ANOVA) statistics were employed to reach valid findings. The findings indicate that the most motivational factors affecting positively publishing scholarly articles by Iranian women are ‘Getting promoted in scientific rank’, ‘Intrinsic talents’, ‘Perseverance and adventitious knowledge’, ‘Feeling of being useful in society’, ‘Getting promoted in job’, ‘Being encouraged by friends and family’, ‘Religious lessons regarding the importance of science’, and ‘Attempt to show individual capabilities’. Finally, some remarks for the improvement of the current condition are highlighted.

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Notes

  1. www.nrisp.ac.ir.

  2. See also http://messageofthaqalayn.com/39-pearls.pdf.

  3. See also http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad.

  4. http://www.farabiaward.ir/.

  5. http://www.khwarizmi.ir/.

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate Hamedan Branch, Islamic Azad University (Iran) for financial support of this research. They would like to thank the authorities and research staff of National Research Institute for Science Policy for their kind cooperation. It is the authors’ pleasure to extend their deep gratitude and thanks to the respected reviewers of the article for their helpful and constructive comments. Dr. Asghar Teymoorian-Motlagh is also appreciated for his useful comments.

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Correspondence to Alireza Isfandyari-Moghaddam.

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Isfandyari-Moghaddam, A., Hasanzadeh, M. & Ghayoori, Z. A study of factors affecting research productivity of Iranian women in ISI. Scientometrics 91, 159–172 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0585-5

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