How does scientific success relate to individual and organizational characteristics? Research data of a scientometric study of psychology researchers in the German-speaking countries.

Research Questions/Hypotheses:

Research Design:

Search-queries on databases; single measurement

Measurement Instruments/Apparatus:

Personal data were collected in autumn 2010 using the online version of the Hogrefe psychology calendar (http://www.hogrefe.de/service/psychologie-kalender/). This calendar lists personnel employed at psychological institutes / departments of universities and other research centres.

Subjects were only considered if they…

• were listed as employees at a category "A" institute (university institute that offers a degree in psychology as a major)
• were not assigned to the employee category "C" (temporary research assistants)
• had a doctorate (according to title information in the psychology calendar)
• had graduated with a major in psychology (also determined by means of title information; when a generic title such as "Prof. Dr." was listed, a psychology major was assumed)

The generated population comprised 2134 subjects. The following subjects were excluded to ensure data quality:

• subjects for whom no publications could be found
• subjects with very common names (as publications and citations can not be reliably matched to these persons)

The final sample size obtained was N = 1742 (81.6 % of the population). A detailed description of the exclusion method is available from the authors upon request.

This final population was coded using name, sex and academic position title (doctorate vs. post-doctorate). The following organizational traits were used: the number of subjects from the population employed at each psychological institute as an indicator of institute size and the quotient of the number of post-doctorate and non-post-doctorate employees as an indicator for the ratio of experienced to young researchers.

Using the names of the population members, personal bibliometric parameters were collected from varying literature databases:

• PSYNDEX: total number of publications, number of English publications
• Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded + Social Science Citation Index): total number of citations, number of citations in English publications, total number of publications (the later value was solely used for validity control of the data and is not included in the dataset)

All of these queries took place between the beginning of August and the end of October 2011 and were not limited to a specific time period, meaning that the indicators pertain to the complete works of the investigated individuals.

Data Collection Method:

Search-queries on databases

Population:

Psychology researchers in the German-speaking countries

Survey Time Period:

Sample:

Complete sample

Gender Distribution:

35,1 % female subjects (n=612)
64,9 % male subjects (n=1130)

Age Distribution: Adults

Spatial Coverage (Country/Region/City): German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland)

Subject Recruitment:

Sample Size:

1742 individuals

Return/Drop Out:

Valid data could be obtained for 81.6 % of the population.