Significant signs: a case study of citation practices in educational research

Abstract

Citations have a central role in the dynamic process of knowledge development and as measures of research performance – yet little is known about their role in educational research or the qualities they are assumed to measure. Based on a citation context analysis, this study shows how a paradigmatic reference within classroom research has been used in 90 articles in educational research journals. Four types of content and four citation functions were identified in the immediate context of the citation symbols. Surprisingly, no critical citations or discussions of the validity of the cited study were found. The results are discussed in relation to the conditions for communication within a field without disciplinary cohesion.

Keywords:

• research quality
• research assessment
• education research
• citation analysis
• classroom research
• knowledge development
• scholarly communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A distinction is sometimes made between references and citations. According to this distinction, a reference points to a cited text, while a citation points to a text which is making a reference to the cited text. Thus, references are an attribute of a citing text, while citations are a quality of a cited text (Nicolaisen 2007). In the present study, these concepts are mostly used interchangeably.

2. The data were downloaded from the WoS on 31 May 2011 through Gothenburg University Library.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council for the project School results and lived curricula in contemporary society [2008–4999].