FSD1089 Dynamics and Productivity of Research Activity in Universities 1990

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Study title

Dynamics and Productivity of Research Activity in Universities 1990

Dataset ID Number

FSD1089

Persistent identifier

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD1089

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

  • Kaukonen, Erkki (University of Tampere. Research Institute for Social Sciences)
  • Luukkonen, Terttu (Academy of Finland)
  • Stolte-Heiskanen, Veronica (University of Tampere. Department of Sosiology and Social Psychology)

Abstract

The survey contains interviews of researchers in six Finnish institutes of higher learning. The main themes pertained to the organisation of the departments' research activities, internationality, scientific communication, scientific publication, utilisation of the findings, and evaluation of university research. The aim of the study was to develop qualitative evaluation methods for scientific research, and find out the significance of resources to the functioning of the departments and the consequences of assessment methods. The researchers were asked how their working time was divided between research, teaching, administration, and other tasks. Relating to professional identity, they were asked about their motivation for choosing a scientific career, along with factors connected to work and working conditions. Scientific communication was studied by asking how the respondents stay in contact with foreign colleagues, what eventual obstacles there are to international contacts, and which countries are the most essential in view of the researchers' own research area. Relating to publishing of the results, the respondents were asked whether their most recent research report was a joint publication or a single author publication, who chose the publication channel, and why was that particular publication channel chosen.

One topic covered research performance assessment and assessment criteria. The respondents were asked what were the most important factors to be taken into account when assessing research performance. The researchers were also asked whether the evaluation criteria used in performance assessment in their field of study were acceptable, and if not, what changes were needed. The scientific activity of the researchers was studied by asking the position of the researchers' main project in the field of science, the duration of the project, size and composition of the research group, and the researchers' other research projects. The researchers were asked to assess their own research, the current situation in their own field of research, and the applicability of their research projects. Other research projects pertaining to the same research area in Finland and abroad, and eventual contacts of the respondents' projects with these were charted. The respondents were also asked to assess their own research in comparison to other research groups and to say what kind of research they felt was high quality research, and with what indicators should scientific successfulness be measured. The survey also contains information on the researchers' scientific output during the past three years.

Background variables included the respondent's position in the department, age, sex, degrees taken, and experience in research activities.

Keywords

bibliometric analysis; evaluation; peer reviews; performance indicators; research; scientific cooperation; scientific personnel

Topic Classification

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (D) available only by permission from the data depositor/creator.

Data Collector

  • Kaukonen, Erkki (University of Tampere. Research Institute for Social Sciences)
  • Luukkonen, Terttu (Academy of Finland)
  • Stolte-Heiskanen, Veronica (University of Tampere. Department of Sosiology and Social Psychology)

Time Period Covered

1989 – 1990

Collection Dates

1989 – 1990

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Researchers at six Finnish universities

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Non-probability: Purposive

Six university departments from the two biggest universities and two universities of technology were chosen for the sample. The aim was to choose the departments so that they would represent different fields of research and academic institutions. Two departments represent natural sciences (zoology and biomedicine), two represent technical sciences (automation technology and automatic control engineering), one department represents exact sciences (mathematics and statistics), one stands for social sciences (social policy).

Collection Mode

Face-to-face interview

Research Instrument

Semi-structured questionnaire

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: English and Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Number of Cases and Variables

228 variables and 217 cases.

Data Version

2.0

Weighting

There are no weight variables in the data.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Kaukonen, Erkki (University of Tampere) & Luukkonen, Terttu (Academy of Finland) & Stolte-Heiskanen, Veronica (University of Tampere): Dynamics and Productivity of Research Activity in Universities 1990 [dataset]. Version 2.0 (2018-08-13). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD1089

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

Related Publications Tooltip

Stolte-Heiskanen, Veronica (1992). Research performance evaluation in the higher education sector: a grass-roots perspective. Higher education management, 4(2), 179-193.

Luukkonen, Terttu (1992). Is scientists' publishing behaviour reward-seeking?. Scientometrics, 24(2), 297-319.

Kaukonen, Erkki (1993). Tieteen moninaisuus ja arvioinnin ongelmat. Korkeakoulutieto 20(1), 16-23.

Study description in machine readable DDI-C 2.5 format

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Metadata record is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.