Evolution of Research Method Usage Across the Academic Careers of Library and Information Science Scholars

TL;DR

This study analyzes how Library and Information Science scholars adopt and evolve research methods throughout their careers, revealing patterns in method diversity, combinations, and changes with seniority.

Contribution

It introduces an automated classification approach to identify research methods in full-text articles and tracks career-stage-specific method usage in LIS scholars.

Findings

Bibliometric methods are most common, especially among senior scholars.

Research method diversity increases then decreases over a scholar's career.

Scholars tend to combine multiple research methods, including unconventional pairings.

Abstract

Research methods constitute an indispensable tool for scholars engaged in scientific inquiry. Investigating how scholars use research methods throughout their careers can reveal distinct patterns in method adoption, providing valuable insights for novice researchers in selecting appropriate methods. This study employs a comprehensive dataset comprising full-text journal articles and bibliographic records from the Library and Information Science (LIS) domain. Utilizing an automated classification model based on full-text cognitive analysis, the research methods employed by LIS scholars are systematically identified. Topic modeling was then conducted using Top2Vec. Subsequently, author name disambiguation is performed, and academic age is calculated for each scholar. This study focuses on 435 senior scholars with an academic age of more than 14 years and a consistent publication record at five-year intervals, covering a total of 6,116 articles. The corpus covers 16 research method categories and 20 research topics. The findings indicate that bibliometric methods are the most frequently used across career stages, accounting for 19.61% among early-career scholars and 31.81% among senior scholars. Over the course of a scholarly career, the diversity of research methods initially increases and then declines. Furthermore, scholars exhibit a propensity for combining multiple research methods, including both conventional and unconventional pairings. Notably, the research methods most commonly used by researchers change with age and seniority.