Relationships of field-normalized and non-normalized scientometrics with the Physical Education Web-Qualis grades

Abstract

This study aimed (1) to verify the relationship between the JIF, Eigenfactor, Citescore and SJR metrics of Physical Education journals throughout Qualis 2013-2016; and (2) to analyze their associations with the field-concerned Web-Qualis grades (based on the 2013-2016 quadrennium criteria). WebQualis grades, which refers to 2015-2018 data, were acquired by accessing officially available data. The scientometrics Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Citescore, Eigenfactor, and Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) for the years 2013 to 2016 and 2018 were extracted from official Clarivate Analytics and Elsevier sources. Approximately half of Physical Education journals included in the 2018 WebQualis database were indexed in Web of Science Collection and Scopus databases. The main results demonstrated high and stable appeared bivariate correlations between all scientometrics from 2013 to 2016. Both JIF, Eigenfactor, Citescore and SJR were associated with WebQualis grades. However, better adjustment of parameters was observed in the model that included SJR as the WebQualis predictor. The field normalized SJR appeared to better predict the WebQualis defined by the 2013-2016 Qualis criteria, which includes the adherence indicator. If researchers consider that distinct research areas are not equally weighted and require specific evaluation, as the authors suggest, use the normalized metrics to classify journals in Brazilian scenarium.