Measuring the quantity and quality of scholarly productivity in criminology and criminal justice: a test of three integrated models

Most studies investigating individual achievement in criminology and criminal justice equate total publications with scholarly productivity. The current study sought to broaden the definition of scholarly productivity by incorporating empirical indices of the quantity and quality of scholarly productivity and applying these indices to both total and first author publications. Analyses performed using publication and citation data from the top 100 criminology and criminal justice scholars over the past 5 years revealed that the total number of publications was no substitute for an integrated (quantity and quality) assessment. Results further indicated that averaging across the total publication and first author integrated models seemed to provide the fairest and most balanced assessment of scholarly productivity. It was also noted that compared to non-theoreticians, theoreticians were more likely to publish first author articles and fared significantly better when evaluated against the first author integrated model than when evaluated against the total publications integrated model. Use of these models to assess scholarly productivity in criminology, criminal justice, and other fields may be warranted.