IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v48y2019i97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What people learn about how people learn: An analysis of citation behavior and the multidisciplinary flow of knowledge

Author

Listed:
  • Solomon, Gregg E.A.
  • Youtie, Jan
  • Carley, Stephen
  • Porter, Alan L.

Abstract

We explore the contention that the seminal US National Academies consensus report, How People Learn (HPL), played a major role in bridging the flow of knowledge from Cognitive Science to Education. Our paper yielded four important results: First, HPL is, on a number of bibliometric measures, an unusually interdisciplinary work. Focusing on the fields of particular interest here, our citation analysis shows the Education, Cognitive Science, and Border field (e.g., Educational Psychology, Learning Sciences, and Learning Technology and Human-Computer Interaction) literatures all to have been major influences on it. Second, we found HPL to be unusually highly cited – and by publications from an unusually diverse set of disciplines. Beyond Education, Cognitive Science, and Border field publications, HPL was also relatively highly cited by publications in Medical/Health-related, Engineering, and other Discipline-Based Education Research fields. Third, undermining the claim that HPL served as a gateway to the Cognitive Science literature, we found Education articles citing HPL not to be more likely to have Cognitive Science as a major influence than are Education articles more generally, as indicated by their cited references. Finally, the Education publications that cited HPL were far more likely to refer to concepts in HPL that were already prevalent in the Education literature rather than to concepts from Cognitive Science. Conversely, the Cognitive Science publications that cited HPL were more apt to refer to concepts already in the Cognitive Science literature. Taken together, these results are a caution that, even for a highly regarded multidisciplinary work cited widely by publications from multiple disciplines, its direct influence could be largely disciplinary. Implications for the policy goals of fostering interdisciplinary research and the role of National Academies consensus reports are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Solomon, Gregg E.A. & Youtie, Jan & Carley, Stephen & Porter, Alan L., 2019. "What people learn about how people learn: An analysis of citation behavior and the multidisciplinary flow of knowledge," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:9:7
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2019.103835
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733319301556
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2019.103835?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barry Bozeman & David Landsbergen, 1989. "Truth and Credibility in Sincere Policy Analysis," Evaluation Review, , vol. 13(4), pages 355-379, August.
    2. Stephen Carley & Alan L. Porter, 2012. "A forward diversity index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 407-427, February.
    3. Andy Stirling, 2007. "A General Framework for Analysing Diversity in Science, Technology and Society," SPRU Working Paper Series 156, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    4. Robert Hassink, 2005. "How to unlock regional economies from path dependency? From learning region to learning cluster," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 521-535, June.
    5. Jan Youtie & Gregg E. A. Solomon & Stephen Carley & Seokbeom Kwon & Alan L. Porter, 2017. "Crossing borders: A citation analysis of connections between Cognitive Science and Educational Research … and the fields in between," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 242-255.
    6. Wagner, Caroline S. & Roessner, J. David & Bobb, Kamau & Klein, Julie Thompson & Boyack, Kevin W. & Keyton, Joann & Rafols, Ismael & Börner, Katy, 2011. "Approaches to understanding and measuring interdisciplinary scientific research (IDR): A review of the literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 14-26.
    7. Alan L Porter & J David Roessner & Alex S Cohen & Marty Perreault, 2006. "Interdisciplinary research: meaning, metrics and nurture," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 187-195, December.
    8. Huutoniemi, Katri & Klein, Julie Thompson & Bruun, Henrik & Hukkinen, Janne, 2010. "Analyzing interdisciplinarity: Typology and indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 79-88, February.
    9. Siedlok, Frank & Hibbert, Paul & Sillince, John, 2015. "From practice to collaborative community in interdisciplinary research contexts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 96-107.
    10. James G. March & Lee S. Sproull & Michal Tamuz, 1991. "Learning from Samples of One or Fewer," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, February.
    11. Alan L. Porter & Alex S. Cohen & J. David Roessner & Marty Perreault, 2007. "Measuring researcher interdisciplinarity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(1), pages 117-147, July.
    12. Alan L. Porter & David J. Schoeneck & Jan Youtie & Gregg E. A. Solomon & Seokbeom Kwon & Stephen F. Carley, 2019. "Learning about learning: patterns of sharing of research knowledge among Education, Border, and Cognitive Science fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 1093-1117, March.
    13. Daniel A. Levinthal & James G. March, 1993. "The myopia of learning," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(S2), pages 95-112, December.
    14. Loet Leydesdorff & Robert L. Goldstone, 2014. "Interdisciplinarity at the journal and specialty level: The changing knowledge bases of the journal cognitive science," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(1), pages 164-177, January.
    15. Dietz, James S. & Bozeman, Barry, 2005. "Academic careers, patents, and productivity: industry experience as scientific and technical human capital," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 349-367, April.
    16. Juan D Rogers, 2010. "Citation analysis of nanotechnology at the field level: implications of R&D evaluation," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 281-290, October.
    17. Barry Bozeman & Jan Youtie & Eriko Fukumoto & Marla Parker, 2019. "When Is Science Used in Science Policy? Examining the Importance of Scientific and Technical Information in National Research Council Reports," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 36(2), pages 262-289, March.
    18. Alan L Porter & David J Roessner & Anne E Heberger, 2008. "How interdisciplinary is a given body of research?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 273-282, December.
    19. Thed van Leeuwen & Robert Tijssen, 2000. "Interdisciplinary dynamics of modern science: analysis of cross-disciplinary citation flows," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 183-187, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin M. Kniffin & Andrew S. Hanks & Xuechao Qian & Bo Wang & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2020. "Dissertators with Distantly Related Foci Face Divergent Near-Term Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 27825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Dennis Essers & Francesco Grigoli & Evgenia Pugacheva, 2022. "Network effects and research collaborations: evidence from IMF Working Paper co-authorship," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7169-7192, December.
    3. Yang, Jinqing & Liu, Zhifeng, 2022. "The effect of citation behaviour on knowledge diffusion and intellectual structure," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    4. Lutz Bornmann & K. Brad Wray & Robin Haunschild, 2020. "Citation concept analysis (CCA): a new form of citation analysis revealing the usefulness of concepts for other researchers illustrated by exemplary case studies including classic books by Thomas S. K," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 1051-1074, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jon Garner & Alan L. Porter & Nils C. Newman, 2014. "Distance and velocity measures: using citations to determine breadth and speed of research impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(3), pages 687-703, September.
    2. Shunshun Shi & Wenyu Zhang & Shuai Zhang & Jie Chen, 2018. "Does prestige dimension influence the interdisciplinary performance of scientific entities in knowledge flow? Evidence from the e-government field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 1237-1264, November.
    3. Alexis-Michel Mugabushaka & Anthi Kyriakou & Theo Papazoglou, 2016. "Bibliometric indicators of interdisciplinarity: the potential of the Leinster–Cobbold diversity indices to study disciplinary diversity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 593-607, May.
    4. Loet Leydesdorff & Caroline S. Wagner & Lutz Bornmann, 2018. "Betweenness and diversity in journal citation networks as measures of interdisciplinarity—A tribute to Eugene Garfield," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 567-592, February.
    5. Stephen Carley & Alan L. Porter, 2012. "A forward diversity index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 407-427, February.
    6. Rafols, Ismael & Leydesdorff, Loet & O’Hare, Alice & Nightingale, Paul & Stirling, Andy, 2012. "How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1262-1282.
    7. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2017. "Specialization versus diversification in research activities: the extent, intensity and relatedness of field diversification by individual scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1403-1418, September.
    8. Stephen F. Carley & Seokbeom Kwon & Alan L. Porter & Jan L. Youtie, 2019. "The relationship between forward and backward diversity in CORE datasets," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 961-974, September.
    9. Ricardo Arencibia-Jorge & Rosa Lidia Vega-Almeida & José Luis Jiménez-Andrade & Humberto Carrillo-Calvet, 2022. "Evolutionary stages and multidisciplinary nature of artificial intelligence research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5139-5158, September.
    10. Alfonso Ávila-Robinson & Cristian Mejia & Shintaro Sengoku, 2021. "Are bibliometric measures consistent with scientists’ perceptions? The case of interdisciplinarity in research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7477-7502, September.
    11. Xuefeng Wang & Zhinan Wang & Ying Huang & Yun Chen & Yi Zhang & Huichao Ren & Rongrong Li & Jinhui Pang, 2017. "Measuring interdisciplinarity of a research system: detecting distinction between publication categories and citation categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 2023-2039, June.
    12. Lin Zhang & Beibei Sun & Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez & Lixin Chen & Ying Huang, 2018. "Interdisciplinarity and collaboration: on the relationship between disciplinary diversity in departmental affiliations and reference lists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 271-291, October.
    13. Chiara Carusi & Giuseppe Bianchi, 2020. "A look at interdisciplinarity using bipartite scholar/journal networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 867-894, February.
    14. David Roessner & Alan L. Porter & Nancy J. Nersessian & Stephen Carley, 2013. "Validating indicators of interdisciplinarity: linking bibliometric measures to studies of engineering research labs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 439-468, February.
    15. Bei Zeng & Haihua Lyu & Zhenyue Zhao & Jiang Li, 2021. "Exploring the direction and diversity of interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion: A case study of professor Zeyuan Liu's scientific publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6253-6272, July.
    16. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Zhang, Lin, 2018. "A comparison of two approaches for measuring interdisciplinary research output: The disciplinary diversity of authors vs the disciplinary diversity of the reference list," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1182-1193.
    17. Casey Helgeson & Robert E. Nicholas & Klaus Keller & Chris E. Forest & Nancy Tuana, 2022. "Attention to values helps shape convergence research," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-19, January.
    18. Leydesdorff, Loet & Wagner, Caroline S. & Bornmann, Lutz, 2019. "Interdisciplinarity as diversity in citation patterns among journals: Rao-Stirling diversity, relative variety, and the Gini coefficient," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 255-269.
    19. Lorenzo Cassi & Wilfriedo Mescheba & Élisabeth Turckheim, 2014. "How to evaluate the degree of interdisciplinarity of an institution?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1871-1895, December.
    20. Wolfgang Glänzel & Koenraad Debackere, 2022. "Various aspects of interdisciplinarity in research and how to quantify and measure those," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5551-5569, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:9:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.