Methods for measuring the citations and productivity of scientists across time and discipline

Publication statistics are ubiquitous in the ratings of scientific achievement, with citation counts and paper tallies factoring into an individual's consideration for postdoctoral positions, junior faculty, tenure, and even visa status for international scientists. Citation statistics are designed to quantify individual career achievement, both at the level of a single publication, and over an individual's entire career. While some academic careers are defined by a few significant papers (possibly out of many), other academic careers are defined by the cumulative contribution made by the author's publications to the body of science. Several metrics have been formulated to quantify an individual's publication career, yet none of these metrics account for the dependence of citation counts and journal size on time. In this paper, we normalize publication metrics across both time and discipline in order to achieve a universal framework for analyzing and comparing scientific achievement. We study the publication careers of individual authors over the 50-year period 1958-2008 within six high-impact journals: CELL, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Physical Review Letters (PRL), and Science. In comparing the achievement of authors within each journal, we uncover quantifiable statistical regularity in the probability density function (pdf) of scientific achievement across both time and discipline. The universal distribution of career success within these arenas for publication raises the possibility that a fundamental driving force underlying scientific achievement is the competitive nature of scientific advancement.Comment: 25 pages in 1 Column Preprint format, 7 Figures, 4 Tables. Version II: changes made in response to referee comments. Note: change in definition of "Paper shares.

Nepotism or Family Tradition?: A Study of NASCAR Drivers

Of the drivers who raced NASCAR cup series in 2005, 23 of 76 had family connections of either being a son, brother or father of current or former drivers. Given the family connections, some have suggested that the N in NASCAR stands for nepotism. The family tradition of career following, however, is not unique to NASCAR. We see this pattern in many careers such as business, law, politics, agriculture, medicine and entertainment. There are many reasons why children enter the same career as their parents. These include physical-capital transfer, human-capital transfer, brand-nameloyalty transfer, and nepotism. Using a panel data of career statistics for drivers from the last 30 years, we test to see which model best explains career following in NASCAR racing. Our results suggest that the N in NASCAR does not stand for nepotism. Sons, do not have longer careers than non family connected drivers, given the same level of performance. We do find, however, that fathers end their careers earlier than performance indicates when a son enters into cup competition. This could be due to a son’s ability to extend a brand name across generations. The extension of a brand name also occurs with second brothers who benefit from the first brother’s name and having longer careers than performance indicates. If nepotism exits, it occurs only with the second brothers.

How do conservatoire graduates manage their transition into the music profession? Exploring the career-building process

This thesis seeks to investigate the career-building process for conservatoire graduates. Life transitions of any type are often anxiety-inducing, and graduation from a degree is no exception. Although conservatoires frequently return DLHE statistics suggesting that graduate employment rates approach 100%, other studies indicate that conservatoire graduates have inadequate career preview, and are consequently unprepared for the realities of a career in music. Despite conservatoires’ attempts to educate their students for varied future careers, the problem persists, and some students avoid careers advice completely. Therefore, this project aims to gain a more nuanced understanding of conservatoire graduates’ experiences of this transition with respect to their experiences whilst studying. The project took a qualitative approach, to capture rich experiential data. In the first part of the project, 21 written accounts were analysed, to investigate participants’ lasting memories of their transitions. The following interview study, with 19 respondents, aimed to build on the findings. Establishing and graduating musicians’ perspectives were compared, to examine the ways in which graduates are (un)prepared for their future careers. The findings suggest that a development in aspirations is central to the conservatoire-to-workplace transition. This came about as a result of enacting a wide variety of work roles during and after the conservatoire degree. Conservatoire education enabled respondents to enact orchestral and operatic roles ‘as standard,’ meaning that many new graduates aspired towards those job roles without considering their competencies outside of performance. Therefore, a great deal of aspirational development took place post-graduation. Respondents developed their aspirations through greater self-knowledge and assessment of their values, requiring many of them to shed fixed ideas and attitudes pertaining to ‘ideal’ musicians’ careers. A wider range of musical experiences and increased opportunity to engage with values may aid conservatoire graduates to make a ‘smoother’ transition into the professional world

Perceptions of masculinity and career specific gender stereotypes

Career gender bias is the tendency for men or women to resist work in careers that tend to be dominated by individuals of a specific gender (nursing, public relations, elementary education, child-care, police, fire, manufacturing). This study posits that current university students exhibit career gender bias and classify certain Bureau of Labor Statistics job classifications as male, female or unisex occupations. Furthermore, with use of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) scale, this study attempted to understand if masculinity, femininity, or androgyny gender identity influences college students’ perceptions of career gender stereotypes and ultimately their view about the growing or declining Bureau of Labor Statistics listed professions. Participants in this study designated growing and declining occupations within male and female subgroups with several careers being viewed as unisex by students scoring high in femininity. Furthermore, data from this study indicate that female participants continue to feel open to male, female, and unisex careers; however, male participants appear to be uncomfortable pursuing unisex or female dominated careers

Self-employment dynamics in rural and urban labour markets

Only few in-depth studies of the alternation between different labour market states have been published. This paper deals with the alternation between self-employment, paid-employment and non-employment in Finland in 1987-1999, paying special attention to differences in self-employment dynamics between areas characterized by different labour market conditions, viz. rural and urban locations. The analysis is based on a one-percent random sample drawn from panel data on the census and longitudinal employment statistics. The results show differences in the transition processes between the three labour market states by the type of area. The results suggest that alternation between different employment options is likely to increase, if employment opportunities remain low in local labour markets. Five major types of working careers are identified, all of which are more common in rural than urban areas. The type of area is importantly related to alternating working careers even when all the important control variables are included into the models.

Project-Based Learning Promotes Students’Perceived Relevance in an Engineering Statistics Course: A Comparison of Learning in Synchronous and Online Learning Environments

Understanding statistics is essential for engineers. However, statistics courses remain challenging for many students, as they find them rigid, abstract, and demanding. Prior research has indicated that using project based learning (PjBL) to demonstrate the relevance of statistics to students can have a significant effect on learning in these courses. Consequently, this study sought to explore the impact of a PjBL intervention on student perceptions of the relevance of engineering and statistics. The purpose of the intervention was to help students understand the connection between statistics and their academic majors, lives, and future careers. Four mini-projects connecting statistics to students’ experiences and future careers were designed and implemented during a 16-week course and students’ perceptions were compared to those of students who took a traditional statistics course. Students enrolled in the experimental group (a synchronous learning experience) and the control group (an online learning experience)were sent the same survey at the end of the semester. The survey results suggest that the PjBL intervention could potentially increase students’ understanding of the usefulness of statistics and effectively enhance their perceptions of belonging to the engineering community. This study summarizes the results of this PjBL intervention, the limitations of the research design, and suggests implications for improving future statistics courses in the context of engineering

Making the Cut: Receivers of the National Football League

In this paper the prospects of the National Football League, or NFL, are studied in order to determine the relationships between past college statistics, other “measurables,” and how they translate to successful careers in the league. When referring to measurables, this consists of all of the numerical data from each player that should, in theory, help teams get an idea of the players strengths or weaknesses. The data being used comes from an annual scouting combine for NFL teams that is held prior to each season. Information about the player’s college statistics and pre-draft measurables are being compared to several individual player statistics that are commonly indicative of successful careers. The goal is not only to benefit teams in identifying productive players, but also for the young men with dreams of competing at the highest level. It is often difficult to get a concrete idea of what teams are looking for, because many teams having differing opinions about which players will provide the most value. This investigation deals specifically with receivers and analyzing data collected from their past in order to make predictions on future careers. Multiple regression models are necessary due to several important independent variables (measurables) for each dependent variable (player statistics). Analyzing these relationships leads to the construction of several mathematical models which aim to predict the success of future prospective NFL receivers

Women in Mathematics: Motivating Factors For Doctorates in Academia Versus Professionals in the Actuarial Sciences

The topic under investigation is women in math-related careers and the motivating factors. Two careers, college professors and actuaries, were selected from the many math-related careers because both require advanced studies in mathematics. They also provide a contrast: one is in the business world while the other is in the world of academia. The purpose of this research is to determine if the numbers of women in upper level mathematics and these two careers are increasing. To accomplish this we first analyze women’s enrollment in mathematical programs from high school through graduate school from 1965-1995 in order to assess the impact of affirmative action. Then we compare and contrast performance levels for males and females on two standardized tests, National Assessment of Educational Progress Mathematics Test for age 17 and the Mathematics Section of the SAT. Next, the employment statistics for actuaries and women in academia are presented. The sources of the statistics are the National Science Foundation, American Mathematical Society, and the Society of Actuaries. The second component of the research deals with what can be done to recruit more women into math-related careers by looking at the factors that encourage or dissuade women from this choice. Mathematical stereotypes, mathematical skill levels of women, female patterns of knowing, and social factors which influence academic and professional choices of women are investigated. Additional focus is given to summer math intervention programs since they are so successful in persuading women to continue with graduate studies in mathematics. The research indicates, that although the gap on mathematical Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics standardized tests between males and females is getting smaller and enrollment in high school and undergraduate mathematics is on par with the number of women in the general population, the number of women choosing math careers in academia and graduate studies in mathematics is much lower than the number of men and is increasing at a lower rate