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“Gender disparity in citations in high-impact journal articles” by Chatterjee and Werner (2021) is published in JAMA Network and considers the differences among scholars. Both authors have qualifications in the Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Werner has a Ph.D. The article’s title does not describe the type of study, variables, and population identified but rather the object of the work. The abstract of the article, in turn, is clear in explaining the importance of the study, its design, setting, and participants, as well as the results of the research.
Next, it is necessary to explore the problem and the purpose of the study. Namely, it is argued in the work that the frequency with which academic publications are mentioned is a major metric of scholarly influence and is widely used to determine professional development. It is also known that women less often take leadership positions in academic medicine (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021). As a result, it is inquired whether the rate of citations is the same for female and male scholarly articles in medical journals; the answer to this question is the purpose of the work. The significance of this problem lies in the discovery of the relevance of discrepancies in article citations to the issue of inequities in women’s advancement and promotion in academic medicine.
It might seem that a literature review is not present in the article since there is no such subheading. However, the authors have described the relevant previous studies in the introductory section with conciseness and succinctness. For example, it is explained that women are less likely to be acknowledged as professionals, with fewer women presenting at major medical conferences, getting honors, being promoted to full professorships, or holding leadership positions (Boiko et al., 2017; Carr et al., 2018; Fournier et al., 2020; Silver et al., 2017). These references are all within the range of ten recent years, meaning that they are current. Moreover, these studies provide ample background for Chatterjee and Werner’s (2021) research and highlight that the number of citations plays a role in assessing academic achievement. Thus, it could be stated that the article adequately presents the previous knowledge on the topic to synthesize a new hypothesis.
Furthermore, the theoretical perspective of the work should be discussed. The framework of the study is not explicitly expressed, and the reviewer must extract it from the implicit statements in the introduction. It is clear that the research is qualitative and based on a feminist theoretical perspective since gender relations are described in a way that underlines the suppression within society. Moreover, it applies tentative data from other academic works: information is derived from a statistical analysis of the social phenomena in the medical scholarly sphere. The framework defines the frequency of citations as the metric of academic achievement; namely, it is argued that the citations affect acceptability, influence, and acknowledgment by scientific groups, as well as professional assessments and advancement (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021). The mentioned concepts (academic recognition, et cetera) are closely connected to the study’s variables: the number of times an article was cited for each published one and the gender of the authors of the medical works. As a result, the framework provides a fundamental base for the research of gender discrepancies within a specific field.
The research objectives, questions, or hypotheses, as well as variables and concepts, also should be taken into account for the critical evaluation. As was mentioned, the study aims to observe if academic publications produced by men and women in high-impact medical journals are referenced differentially (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021). Hence, the question is uttered: are male and female academic works in elevated medical journals quoted diversely? Based on the rare representations of women in major medical conferences, the authors hypothesize that female authors receive lesser citations after the publication of their works. Moreover, the result of this deficiency is the inability of women to be appreciated as professionals in medicine. Hence, the variables of the research are the number of citations as well as the genders of the authors in the sample; in turn, the main concepts are academic achievement and recognition. Therefore, the demographic variable is gender, while attributes are their article’s recognition, counted in mentions.
One needs to consider the research design when evaluating the article as well. The researchers collected data on publications published in five top academic medical journals and included all peer-reviewed original research publications and comments in each paper. Then, they gathered the names of the prominent (or first) and senior (or final) authors and the date of publication for each piece. Next, they utilized Genderize, an online database previously used to investigate gender differences in academic article authorship. They summarized the documents in the sample based on the genders of authors, publication date, periodical, and article category. Lastly, they viewed how citation counts differed across gender combinations of significant and senior author pairs. They used nonparametric medians tests to assess the number of citations between paired groups (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021). Thus, the research clearly describes the protocol and each step in the study, providing details on the rationale for interventions.
Next, the research sample should be assessed while the setting has been already implicitly described in the study’s design. The authors picked the articles from five journals based on factors and discussions within academic medical faculty on the long-term professional effect of publishing in these journals. They included all peer-reviewed study publications but rejected clinical recommendations and omitted editorials, systematic reviews, and narrative reviews (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021). After gathering data, the papers whose authorship was attributed to research collaboration and articles whose writers’ gender could not be identified were also excluded. As a result, the sample size is 5554 articles (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021, p. 3). Hence, the sample of the research is well-described and enough for the study.
It is necessary to describe the article’s strategies, validity, and descriptions from this point. As such, the measurement strategy is depicted as “nonparametric equality of medians tests to compare the number of citations between paired groups and Kruskal-Wallis tests between multiple groups” (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021, p. 3). Moreover, they “applied 1-tailed tests with statistical significance determined at a threshold of P <.025” (Chatterjee & Werner, 2021, p. 3). These methods are verified, and the authors reference the source for information about the strategy and measurements. The researchers identified the result of the study as significant; moreover, it is consistent if different years’ articles are compared. Chatterjee & Werner (2021) generalized that research publications produced as primary authors by women had fewer citations than those written by men, meaning they systematically received lesser academic recognition based on the mentioned indicator. The description of the study is sufficient for replication, and the logic behind the conclusion could be comprehended.
Finally, the authors identify study limitations, suggestions, and implications. Namely, limiting this analysis to top medical publications reduced the possible impact of these characteristics. Moreover, the findings may understate disparities reported in other disciplines of medicine where gender distribution is less equal. Yet, it is highlighted that the results are consistent with research from fields other than academic medicine. The suggestions imply that increased training and employment of women will not address some of the observed gender gaps. It is better to ensure that women have a field that recognizes and promotes their accomplishments. The study is significant for academic society in general.
To conclude, the research is primarily following academic standards and requirements. There are several issues, such as a lack of clarity in the title as well as the absence of separate literature review and theoretical framework sections. Yet, these sections are implicitly present in the study, making it entirely validated and relevant. The accurate description of the sample, research design, and findings demonstrate the coherency of the work and its significance for further investigation.
References
Boiko, J. R., Anderson, A. J. M., & Gordon, R. A. (2017). Representation of women among academic grand rounds speakers. JAMA Internal Medicine, 177(5), 722. Web.
Carr, P. L., Raj, A., Kaplan, S. E., Terrin, N., Breeze, J. L., & Freund, K. M. (2018). Gender differences in academic medicine. Academic Medicine, 93(11), 1694–1699. Web.
Chatterjee, P., & Werner, R. M. (2021). Gender disparity in citations in high-impact journal articles. JAMA Network Open, 4(7). Web.
Fournier, L. E., Hopping, G. C., Zhu, L., Perez-Pinzon, M. A., Ovbiagele, B., McCullough, L. D., & Sharrief, A. Z. (2020). Females are less likely invited speakers to the international stroke conference. Stroke, 51(2), 674–678. Web.
Silver, J. K., Slocum, C. S., Bank, A. M., Bhatnagar, S., Blauwet, C. A., Poorman, J. A., Villablanca, A., & Parangi, S. (2017). Where are the women? The underrepresentation of women physicians among recognition award recipients from medical specialty societies. PM&R, 9(8), 804–815. Web.
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