Psychological Research in Modern Russia: Experience of Scientometric Analysis (Based on the Materials of the Siberian Journal of Psychology)

Abstract

The article represents the experience of scientometric analysis based on the materials of a Russian journal. The «Siberian Journal of Psychology» was chosen as the object of analysis. The magazine enjoys authority in the psychological community, it is included in the list of State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles, is referenced in the databases Web of Science and Scopus. The thesaurus method, which is quite widespread in scientometric research in psychology, was used in the work. The whole body of articles published in the journal (1995-2019), including 1237 articles, is analyzed. The article presents the results of statistical analysis: distribution of articles posted in different sections of journals; articles on personalities, psychology as a science (directions, sections, approaches, etc.), various diseases (mental, physical, psychophysiological, etc.), the study of various social groups (normative, professional), the study of age groups (preschool, primary school, adolescent and other age), various concepts and problems. The analysis of publication dynamics in seven most popular sections reflects a living history of changes in the interest and editions of the journal, and researchers themselves to study the problems of clinical psychology, general psychology and personality psychology, social psychology, educational psychology, developmental psycholo-gy, etc. Despite the great variability of the problem field publications, we highlighted the leading sections in the journal, the most significant areas for the journal, approaches and sections of psychological science; social and age groups to which article authors are most interested; concepts, problems, phenomena of psychology, which are the subject of the largest number of articles. The authors of the article believe that over the 25-year history of the «Siberian Journal of Psychology» has acquired not only its own unique face among many other psychological publications, but also has become strongly associated, on the one hand, with a discussion of a very specific field of urgent problems for psychological science. On the other hand, the presence of the leading problems and issues discussed on the pages of the journal is unique and consistent with the high degree of variability of studies presented in the journal. All this allowed the editorial staff of the journal to enter the «Siberian Journal of Psychology» firmly into the recent history of Russian and world psychological science in a relatively short period of its history.