TOP CITED SCHOLARS IN MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING: A CITATION ANALYSIS OF JOURNAL ARTICLES IN PsycINFO Chris Piotrowski University of West Florida (Project Completed: January 5, 2013) TOP CITED SCHOLARS IN MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING: A CITATION ANALYSIS OF JOURNAL ARTICLES IN PsycINFO Since the advent of Google Scholar, academicians have taken a renewed interest in citation analysis and there has been an influx of research on the applications of citation-based studies in the academic literature (see Piotrowski, 2013). However, researchers have cautioned that citation analysis findings can be influenced by the type of methodology used in the analysis. Ponterotto et al. (2012) reported on the top-cited scholars in multicultural counseling textbooks. The current analysis of journal articles (not books) in the database PsycINFO shows that by using a content analysis approach a different ranking of top scholars, based on cited-references, was identified in the multicultural counseling research literature. Introduction Ponterotto et al. (2012) identified a listing of the top-cited scholars in multicultural counseling, based on an analysis of leading textbooks used in the training of counselors and counseling psychologists and educators in the field. In rank order, the following ‘top 10’ authors were identified: D.W. Sue, J.E., Helms, P.B. Pedersen, J.G. Ponterotto, P. Arredondo, D.R. Atkinson, R.T. Carter, R.H. Dana, A.E. Ivey, and D. Sue. Since citation-based methods vary greatly and, thus, limit generalizability of results, Ponterotto et al.’s findings would best be considered tentative and limited only to textbooks. It still remains an open question on who are the most cited authors in the field of multicultural counseling based on a cited-reference analysis of scholarly journals. Thus, this paper is an attempt to address this timely question. Prior research has shown that content analysis can be a valid methodology in the examination of a body of literature (Krippendorff, 2004). Moreover, content analysis can corroborate citation-based findings. For example, Piotrowski (2012) identified the top journals in the field of forensic psychology by performing an analysis of PsycINFO, based on a keyword search strategy of major issues in the field. This paper reports the results of a similar analysis of PsycINFO, utilizing the keyword search phrase Multicultural counseling. Since the focus here was on articles only, the search found 1,170 journal citations for this keyword. Table 1 below shows the listing of the top 10 authors, based on number of articles, found for this term. In addition, since PsycINFO displays a ‘cited by’ function for each reference, the total number of cited-references for all of an author’s publications, displayed in the search, could be calculated. The rank order of authors, based on these values, is presented in Table 1. In the current analysis, the listing of the most cited authors in the periodical-journals literature, under the subject heading of ‘multicultural counseling’, differs markedly to Ponterotto et al.’s results who admittedly note in their discussion that the correlation between citations in texts and journals was rather low. Studies that report evidence for ‘Top scholars’ need to temper the generalizability of findings; results of such investigations should be viewed as tentative. Over the years, there has been a vigorous research interest in confirming the most influential psychologists, particularly in textbooks (Hoefer, Warnick, & Knapp, 2003; Newstead, 1983). Rankings, based on citation analysis, have varied quite markedly (see Daniel, 1979). Findings of this nature should be no different in the sub-field of multicultural counseling. Table 1. Ranking of Authors in Multicultural Counseling Field Based on Analysis of PsycINFO # of articles Total cited-references to articles Patricia Arredondo 12 1,765 Madonna G. Constantine 31 993 Joseph G. Ponterotto 18 566 Donald B. Pope-Davis 11 524 Donald R. Atkinson 12 398 Michael D’Andea 12 359 Gargi Roysicar 17 103 Bryan S.K. Kim 9 103 Roger D. Herring 10 93 Woodrow M. Parker 10 26 REFERENCES Daniel, R. S. (1979). Bibliometrics and scholarly impact. American Psychologist, 34(8), 725-726. Hoefer, M.L., Warnick, E., & Knapp, T.J. (2003). Contributions to the history of psychology: CXVII. Who’s who in American psychology: A citation study of introductory psychology textbooks. Psychological Reports, 93, 186-190. Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology (2nd ed.). 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