ERIC Number: EJ1398583
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1357-3322
EISSN: EISSN-1470-1243
Vistas of the Field: Examining Quality Indicators of Health and Physical Education Journals
Sperka, Leigh; Phillips, Murray G.
Sport, Education and Society, v28 n8 p990-1006 2023
In this paper, we use the field of Health and Physical Education (H/PE) to explain the limitations, nuances, and inconsistencies of three global, digitally available, and regularly updated systems: library holdings, metrics, and altmetrics. We understand these systems through the analogy of seeing different vistas of a landscape when driving a car: looking in the rear-view mirror (i.e. library holdings as past indicators of quality) and out the side windows (i.e. metrics and altmetrics as current indicators). Before examining these measures, we acknowledge the neoliberal audit culture and outline our understanding of the H/PE 'field'. To identify H/PE journals, we searched databases, websites, and literature, generating a list of 202 potentially relevant journals. After three rounds of refinement, 13 journals remained that: (1) focused on health and/or physical education as a school subject (including H/PE teacher education), (2) had official metrics, and (3) self-identified as 'Social Sciences-Education' and had more than 20% of the papers in the last two volumes focus on H/PE. For each of these journals, we provide the WorldCat library holdings, metrics (i.e. Journal Impact Factor, Journal h-index, CiteScore, SCImago Journal Rank, and Source Normalized Impact per Paper), and altmetrics. We explain how to understand these measures, as well as their contested, problematic and, often, confusing dimensions. Overall, we argue that it is crucial for scholars to understand these measures so that they can critically reflect on how measurement shapes their research and professional lives.
Descriptors: Health Education, Physical Education, Periodicals, Measurement, Library Materials, Bibliometrics, Social Media, Neoliberalism
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A