Differences in Journal Google Scholar Metrics Across Kinesiology Subdisciplines

Abstract

This study extended recent research on differences in journal citation metrics across kinesiology subdiscipline-related keywords, using the world's largest free database (Google Scholar) and a curated database (Scopus). Google Scholar Metrics (GSM) was searched for top-ranked journals using 26 subdisciplinary keywords in kinesiology. Journal prestige and usage metrics extracted from GSM were combined with three Scopus metrics from SCImago Journal Rank for 114 journals. Results confirmed previous studies reporting large differences (5 to 7 times) in median prestige and usage metrics, respectively, between sport history and sports medicine journals. This confirms the disadvantage humanities/behavioral science journals have relative to biomedical science journals and the need to investigate the appropriateness of journal metrics within subdisciplinary areas. Correlations confirmed strong associations between the two prestige and two usage journal metrics, as well as moderate associations among the metrics and with the number of articles published. Results contributed to a consensus that kinesiology research is too diverse and interdisciplinary to rely on a single database or journal metric as a proxy for research quality. Judicious use of several databases and journal metrics within kinesiology subdisciplines may provide limited but useful supplementary information on likely visibility in bibliometric databases for the selection of potential publication outlets.