Penn State’s Educational Psychology program is turning out an exceptionally high number of published articles -- high enough that the program is ranked in the top 10 internationally in the rate of publishing, according to new research.
The Penn State program ranks ninth worldwide in an evaluation of productivity. The ranking system reflects the number of articles that have been published in five peer-reviewed educational psychology journals between 2003 and 2008.
“This ranking supports the strong international reputation of our Educational Psychology program and will serve to increase awareness of the program by prospective students,” said Rayne Sperling, professor-in-charge of the Penn State program. “We have a small program but strong faculty members who conduct critical research in areas such as reading comprehension, students' strategy use, measurement, and learning.”
The evaluation was done by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin -- Sara J. Jones, Carlton J. Fong, Laura G. Torres, Julia H. Yoo, Mark Lowry Decker and Daniel H. Robinson. Their work will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Contemporary Educational Psychology.
The researchers used that journal, as well as the journals Cognition and Instruction, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review and the Journal of Educational Psychology, as the basis of their study. They determined productivity according to two factors: the number of articles published in the five journals and a points system that takes into account an author’s position relative to the number of articles.
The study represents 440 institutions that have educational psychology programs. A total of 892 articles appeared over the six-year period.