Dear Bill and everybody-
Bill wrote,
> I take it that % means % of all articles for the year. Did you notice the
> declining trend for both? Should we be worried?
I think so.
>
> It would be helpful if the actual numbers were presented because the
decline
> in %'s could be understood by a growth in publications, e.g. new journals.
True, but we checked for that and found that this trend is nothing to do
with growing number of number of journals because some notions like
"identity" there is steady growth of percentage of abstracts while for the
notions like "behavior" there seems to be a plato since mid 1990s. Moreover,
the absolute number of abstracts mentioning Piaget and Vygotsky are down in
recent years.
> Units of analysis, my constant bugbear companion, makes a diffenrce too.
Does
> it make more sense to count by journal article, or by author. In the case
of
> multiple authors, the ideas could be more widespread than indicated by
> counting papers.
Bill, very good point but you have to apply for a grant to investigate it
:-) Seriously speaking, the result won't change if you shift to another unit
of analysis. Look at the raw data yourself:
Year
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
All abstracts in PSYCINFO
14986
65657
69626
65550
63339
62074
59971
59488
55065
52656
51163
49685
Vygotsk*
2
51
76
81
148
73
80
123
79
64
63
70
Piaget*
13
64
100
115
128
135
108
147
122
108
122
162
Notice please that 2003 is not completed yet!
What do you think?
Eugene
PS In our methodology, we excluded all articles that do not have abstracts.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Barowy [mailto:wbarowy@attbi.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 9:00 AM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Science alert: When Vygotsky beat Piaget
>
> On Thursday 14 August 2003 1:34 am, Eugene Matusov promulgated:
>
> > As the graph below shows, Mark was right only in 1999. 1999 was a good
year
> > for Vygotsky for some reason..
>
> > What do you think?
> >
>
> Nifty. :-)
>
> Take a (re)look at David Dirlam's work on meme population dynamics. From
the
> work he has done, it might be intersting to see the change over time of
the
> citations of the concepts -- zoped, mediation, assimilation, accomodation,
> etc, linking to the uptake and use of their ideas, giving some indication
to
> how much of a mediational role they play.
>
> Units of analysis, my constant bugbear companion, makes a diffenrce too.
Does
> it make more sense to count by journal article, or by author. In the case
of
> multiple authors, the ideas could be more widespread than indicated by
> counting papers.
>
> I take it that % means % of all articles for the year. Did you notice the
> declining trend for both? Should we be worried?
>
> It would be helpful if the actual numbers were presented because the
decline
> in %'s could be understood by a growth in publications, e.g. new journals.
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