Departmental Publication Productivity and Reputational Quality: Disciplinary differences

Abstract

Using US national data, this study examines the levels and interactions between reputational rankings, average publications, citations, and external research support across 30 disciplines. The analyses show great variation among the disciplines in average and range of publications, citations, and external research support. They also show that the intercorrelations among the measures vary greatly by discipline. For example, the correlation between average publication level and reputational rankings was substantial in chemistry (.87), but weak in industrial engineering (.20); the correlation between the level of research support and reputation was strong in psychology (.74), but very small in astronomy (.14). Comparison of departments ranked in the top 10 with those ranked near the bottom showed that it was possible for departments to rank very high in a discipline but have publication, citation, and support levels below departments ranked near the bottom. The implications for quality and increasing status in higher education are discussed.