Examining the Impact of Chemistry Education Research Articles from 2007 through 2013 by Citation Counts Li Ye, † Scott E. Lewis,* ,†,‡ Jeffrey R. Raker, †,‡ and Razanne Oueini † † Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States ‡ Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Research in Undergraduate STEM Education, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, United States * S Supporting Information ABSTRACT: Evaluating the impact of Chemistry Education Research articles has historically centered on the impact factor of the publishing journal. With the advent of electronic journal indices, it is possible to determine the impact of individual research articles by the number of citations it has received. However, in a relatively new discipline, such as Chemistry Education Research, it is necessary to provide context for the citation counts, particularly because Chemistry Education Research faculty are likely evaluated by chemistry faculty in more established subdisciplines. This study seeks to provide context by reviewing the citation counts for a sample of 749 Chemistry Education Research articles published in chemistry education or science education journals from 2007 through 2013. The number of citations was found to follow a non-normal distribution and, thus, results are presented using quartiles to describe the range of citations. The results are delineated by metric of citations (Web of Science and Google Scholar), year published, and in terms of established authors. KEYWORDS: Chemical Education Research, Graduate Education/Research, Communication/Writing, Administrative Issues, Professional Development FEATURE: Chemical Education Research ■ INTRODUCTION Evaluating the impact of research articles is of interest to researchers, as it provides an important perspective in terms of understanding a discipline. It is of particular interest to research active faculty undergoing evaluation of their research productivity for tenure or promotion or for describing the impact of dissemination efforts to funding sources. Chemistry Education Research (CER) is a relatively new field. 1 As part of the effort to characterize the developing field, a series of articles has been generated in service to understanding the nature of the field. These articles have sought to provide expectations for conducting and communicating CER. 2,3 Other articles have sought to establish a baseline for productivity by examining the publication rates of faculty engaged in the field. 4,5 Focusing on the role of journals, Towns and Kraft surveyed those engaged in CER to identify top-tier and middle-tier journals in CER and applicable journals in STEM education to provide a more detailed picture of journal quality beyond impact factor measures. 6 Combined, these articles serve to provide context for those engaged in CER to better understand their productivity and impact. Additionally, they provide background for those who evaluate CER researchers, a vital resource for those who are not engaged in CER. To date, however, there has been no investigation of the citations of CER articles; such a study can provide a baseline to aid in understanding the impact of research in chemistry education. Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis Bibliometrics, or scientometrics, is the study of measures of scientific literature. There is a considerable variety of metrics used with each metric targeting a different intended measure, as reviewed by Pendlebury. 7 A brief summary of the metrics is presented here; readers who are interested in learning more are encouraged to consult the source article. Most of the metrics rely on some measure of impact, often described by the number of citations received. Pendlebury distinguished impact from the quality of work, indicating that quality is best evaluated through expert peer-review such as the processes for deciding publication and funding. The role of determining impact then is to aid in the determination of quality, particularly in evaluating the growing number of research artifacts produced and to serve as a guard against bias in evaluating research. Among the most common measures of impact is the journal impact factor, defined as the average number of article citations for a journal over an established time period. This metric is designed specifically for evaluating journals and provides a metric that is independent of the number of articles published and time frame that the journal has been published. As a metric of a journal, impact factor should not be used to describe the impact of a particular author or paper published in the journal because articles within a journal have considerable variety. Article pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. A DOI: 10.1021/ed5007635 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX