Should Google Scholar be used for benchmarking against the professoriate in education?
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Should Google Scholar be used for benchmarking against the professoriate in education? Margaret K. Merga1 · Sayidi Mat Roni2 · Shannon Mason3 Received: 4 May 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In the neoliberal environment of contemporary academia, an individual’s research rankings and outputs can shape their career security and progression. When applying for ongoing employment and promotional opportunities, academics may benchmark their performance against that of superior colleagues to demonstrate their performance in relation to their discipline. The H-index and citation rates are commonly used to quantify the value of an academic’s work, and they can be used comparatively for benchmarking purposes. The focus of this paper is to critically consider if Google Scholar be used for benchmarking against the professoriate in education, by weighting up issues of data reliability and participation. The Google Scholar profiles of full professors at top ranked universities in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America are analysed to explore how widespread Google Scholar use is in the education professoriate. Quartiles of impact are established in relation to H-index, with exploration of how gender is distributed across these quartiles. Limitations of using Google Scholar data are highlighted through a taxonomy of quality confounders, and the utility of Google Scholar as a legitimate tool for benchmarking against the professoriate in education is strongly challenged. As metrics continue to rise in their importance for academics’ job security and promotional prospects, reliance on metrics of dubious quality and uneven participation must be questioned. Keywords H-Index · Benchmarking · Education · Google Scholar · Gender
Introduction In contemporary academia, an individual’s research rankings and outputs shape their job security and progression in a highly competitive environment (Osterloh and Frey 2015). Considering the increasing instability of employment in academia, characterised by scarcity of ongoing roles, it can be contended that “those of us fortunate enough to hold * Margaret K. Merga [email protected] 1
School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
2
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
3
Faculty of Education, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Scientometrics
tenured positions at financially stable universities may be the last faculty to enjoy such comparative privilege” (Guthrie et al. 2015, p. 3). Full professorship is the ultimate goal for many academics in the discipline of education, though to secure initial employment may be a more immediate and pragmatic concern. Before the goal of full professorship can be attained, academics must secure ongoing, secure employment through tenure, and then progress upward through internal promotion or mobility between institutions. The case put forth to surpass all of these hurdles is typically an argument for merit that may to some extent be reliant on benchmarkin
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