Formal Communication Within School Psychology: A 1990–1994 Journal Citation Analysis

Citation analysis methods are discussed, particularly as a means of assisting researchers in clarifying formal communication patterns among journals within school psychology. The present study expands on earlier work by Kawano, Kehle, Clark, & Jenson (1993) by studying similarities among 22 school psychology and related journals in their citation frequencies between 1990–1994. Main results indicate that the 7 school psychology journals (including Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment) display a low level of “within-journal inbreeding” (self-citation percentages) compared to other journals in the pool; school psychology journals tended to “store” citations from other journals in the pool to a greater degree than they “feed” citations to other journals; two interpretable dimensions underlie a map of shared citations among the journals: Special Education/Psychology (Dimension 1) and High Emphasis on Professional and Service Delivery Issues/Low Emphasis on Professional and Service Delivery Issues (Dimension 2); and school psychology journals are more similar in the pattern of citations received from other journals but are less similar in the pattern of citations given to other journals. Implications of the results for the field in general and school psychology practitioners in particular are discussed.