COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY IN
INDIA: A SCIENTOMETRIC STUDY
by Dr. S L Sangam
Professor and Head
Department of Library and
Information Science
Karnatak University,
Dharwad-580 003, INDIA.
Email: slsangam@yahoo.com
Introduction
Since the beginning of 20th century there has been a consistent and trend towards collaboration between workers in all the major branches of Science. The Organizations of Science have been changed dramatically because scientists are no longer able to carry out their work in isolation. Due to institutionalization of science almost every scientist of today in contrast to the scientists of the past, work to a lessor or a greater degree, in collaboration or close contact with other scientific workers. Collaboration in research is said to have taken place when two or more scientists work together on a scientific problem or project and contribute their effort physical and mental. Number of studies have been undertaken concerning collaborative research. Most of these studies either refer to the world science literature as a whole. The purpose of the present study is to determine the collaborative research trends in the field of Psychology as a whole in India.
Methods
The data for this study is taken from the "Psyclit" CD-ROM Database 1974-1997. It has been divided in to five blocks. (74-78, 79-83, 84-88, 89-93, 94-98). The total sample consist of 7451 research publications. In each time block, the total number of research publication and the availability of funding has been identified Each publication has been classified as Internal Collaboration, Domestic Collaboration and International Collaboration.
The data was tabulated and analysed for the purpose of interpretation and discussion. The data was also subjected to chi-square test, to examine hypothesis of study, to test, prove or disprove the statement.
Results
Authorship pattern in India in Psychology reveals that majority of the papers were two authored i.e. 39.43% and three authored papers were 15.48%. Approximately three fourths of scientific papers were multi-authored ones with an average authorship of 2.15 per paper. The single authored papers constitute slightly more than one-fourth of the total output.
Authorship pattern in different subfield of Psychology namely, General Psychology, Psychometrics, Experimental Psychology, Physiological Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental social Psychology, Personality, Educational Psychology and Applied Psychology shows that the authorship pattern varies among the various subfield of Psychology.
Degree of collaboration in Psychology:
The degree of collaboration in Psychology has been determined by using
the formula given by K Subramanyam:
Nm
C = ----------------
Nm + Ns
The degree of collaboration in Psychology is 0.60. Further analysis was
made to find out the degree of collaboration in the different subfield
of Psychology.
Internal collaborative Publications in first group on one hand , its contribution
has consistantly decreased from 59% to 38% . Domestic collaborative publications
consistently increased 21.5% to 32.5%. International collaboration have
shown increasing trend 12.5% to 18.6%
25% of the Publications are observed to be funded collaborated by different Research organizations.
Further it has been identified that the nature and magnitude of research
collaboration, the influence of various factors such as availability of
research grant, subject characteristics, etc and the impact of collaboration
on the organization of research and communication in different fields
of psychology in India.
Thus, the study indicates the presence of a high degree of collaboration
in the Psychology research in India.
Conclusion
The study is based on a large volume of Publications from diverse fields of Psychology research in India and will provide valuable empirical data on the time frame from the awarding of a research grant to the publication of subsequent findings.
