MadrasAgric.J.,2024; https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.500004

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Received: 27 Aug 2024

Revised: 11 Sep 2024

Accepted: 28 Sep 2024

*Corresponding author's e-mail: sharmaarpita615@gmail.com

Publishing Articles in Indexed Journals: Insights from

Research Scholars

Arpita Sharma Kandpal

Assistant Professor, Dept of Agril Comm, GBPUA&T, Pantnagar

ABSTRACT

Research has become a pivotal element across various domains including

Science, Technology, Industry, Healthcare, and Education. It’s the driving force

behind innovation and progress. Within the educational sector, any research

endeavours are underway to nurture students’ talents in schools, colleges,

and Universities. Governments are actively supporting these efforts through

funding agencies to harness the potential of the student community. One such

initiative at the college and university levels involves encouraging research

scholars to publish their work in indexed journals, thereby enhancing their

knowledge and expertise in their respective fields. In this context, a study has

been initiated to identify the factors influencing research scholars to publish

their articles in indexed journals, recognizing it as an essential pursuit.

The study focuses on a sample of 50 research scholars from GBPUA&T,

Pantnagar. Its aim is to uncover the primary factors motivating these scholars

to contribute their work to indexed journals, recognizing the pressing need for

such endeavours. The results indicated that many factors affect the publishing

article in indexed journal such as abstracting and indexing services, open

access, physical quality, time, cost etc.

Keywords: Publication; Articles; Indexed; Journals; Research Scholars

INTRODUCTION

Publishing articles in journals has opened up

numerous opportunities for contemporary users and

scholars that were previously unavailable. With their

multidimensional features, journals are increasingly

becoming the preferred choice for academic and public

library users. The advent of technology and the internet

has significantly altered scholarly communication

and research across various disciplines such as

humanities, sciences, social sciences, and health

sciences. (Hren et.al, 2007).

Research has become an integral part of human

life today, benefiting our daily lives directly or indirectly

through

advancements

and

developments

various levels. Governments and numerous funding

agencies have actively promoted research to ensure

the production of high-quality outcomes. The recent

surge in enrollment for Ph.D. programs at Indian

universities exemplifies the growing importance

placed on research. Indian universities prioritize the

employment of individuals holding doctoral degrees.

(Jahanfar et. al., 2017)

While the primary purpose of basic research

is documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the

development of methods and systems for advancing

human knowledge, millions of research projects

are underway at different levels, each with distinct

purposes. However, only a fraction of this research

translates into real-time applications, with most

research efforts going unrealized. This research delves

into various factors that shape attitudes towards

research and explores the key reasons driving students

towards research endeavors. (Lilly, 2021). Additionally,

it sheds light on the primary motivations behind

publishing articles in reputable indexed journals. The

research investigates the primary reasons or factors

that hold significant importance in guiding individuals’

MadrasAgric.J.,2024; https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.500004

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decisions to publish their articles in indexed journals.

In reputable universities and colleges, prioritizing

publication in peer-reviewed and indexed journals

greatly influences scholars’ performance evaluations.

Scholars are further incentivized to contribute their

work to indexed journals to enhance their research

acumen. Therefore, this study aims to uncover the

factors shaping research scholars’ inclination to

publish in indexed journals. The objective is to identify

the influences driving research scholars to publish

their articles in indexed journals.

METHODOLOGY

Data for this study was collected from research

scholars enrolled in M.Sc or Ph.D. programs. A

comprehensive questionnaire was designed to assess

their attitudes towards research and publishing

articles in indexed journals. The sample size

comprised 50 research scholars, all from Coimbatore

city, and included individuals pursuing research

in esteemed institutions. Data collection utilized a

convenient sampling method. The analysis involved

both percentage analysis and factor analysis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Research Scholars show keen interest in publishing

their work in reputed journals and books. Many factors

contribute to select a journal for publication. Some of

the main factors have been highlighted in the Table 1.

Factor Analysis technique has been applied to find

the underlying dimensions (factors) that exists in the

12 variables relating to the factors that influenced the

research scholars to publish their papers in reputed

indexed journals. Two tests namely Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin

measures of sampling adequacy (KMO) & Bartlett’s

Test of Sphercity have been applied, to test whether the

relationship among the variables has been significant

or not as shown in Table 2.

The test results showed that with the significant

value of .000 there is a significant relationship among

the variable chosen. KMO test yields a result of 0.654,

which states that factor analysis can be carried out

appropriately for these 12 variables which are taken

for the study. Table 3 highlights the total variance

explained from the 12 variables. The four factors

extracted together account for 67.167 % of the total

variance. From 12 variables, it has been economized

to four underlying factors.

From Rotated component matrix table, the variables

Prestige, Cost of publication and, Impact factor have

Table 1. Factors considered for publication of article in Indexed journals N=50

S. No.

Factors

Strongly

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly

Agree

Abstracting and indexing

services

8 (16)

7(14 )

15( 30)

13(26)

Open access

5 (10)

6 (12)

8 (16)

17 (34)

14 (28)

Peer-review for scientific

qualification

4 (8)

9 (18)

8 (16)

11 (22)

14 (28)

Physical quality

7 (14)

9 (18)

5 (10)

14 (28)

15 (30)

Prestige

4 (8)

7 (14)

3 (6)

10 (20)

16 (32)

Publisher

8 (16)

6 (12)

7 (14)

10 (20)

19 (38)

Standard Editorial Board

5 (10)

6 (12)

8 (16)

17 (34)

14 (28)

Confidentiality

4 (8)

7 (14)

18 (36)

14 (28)

Impact factor

3 (6)

11 (22)

17 (34)

15 (30)

Timely publishing of

articles

4 (8)

3(6)

8 (16)

11 (22)

20 (40)

Cost of publication

3 (6)

2 (4)

7 (14)

18 (36)

20 (40)

Possibility of easy Citation

5 (10)

4 (8)

8 (16)

17 (34)

16 (32)

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Table 2. KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphercity

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.

0.654

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity

Approx. Chi-Square

1205.704

Sig.

.000

Table 3. Total Variance Explained

No.

Initial Eigenvalues

Extraction Sums of Squared

Loadings

Rotation Sums of Squared

Loadings

Total

% of

Variance

Cumulative

Total

% of

Variance

Cumulative

Total

% of

Variance

Cumulative

2.316

31.047

18.047

2.316

31.047

18.047

1.354

16.695

18.685

1.233

10.129

29.145

1.233

10.129

29.145

1.058

16.131

26.828

1.076

8.130

38.376

1.076

8.130

38.376

1.271

10.638

37.656

1.060

7.001

47.377

1.060

7.001

47.377

1.037

8.500

67.167

.816

6.048

45.035

.685

5.176

61.611

.734

5.019

67.130

.620

5.002

63.523

.513

4.125

78.821

.641

3.415

83.161

.344

2.686

87.066

.342

1.833

96.070

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

loadings of 0.602, .652, and 0.692 on factor 1, this

suggests that factor 1 is a combination of these

variables. At this point, a suitable phrase that captures

the original variables’ essence to form the underlying

concept, factot1, could be named “Reputation”.

In the factor 2 columns, the variables Physical

quality, Publisher, Confidentiality and Possibility of

easy Citation have high loadings of 0.615, 0.619,

0.533 and 0.526 respectively. This indicates that

factor 2 combines these three variables and is named

“Reliability”.

In the factor 3 column, the variables Standard

Editorial Board and Timely publishing of articles,

Abstracting and indexing services have high loadings

of 0.492 0.580 and 0.522 respectively. This indicates

that factor 3 combines these two variables and is

named “Standard Review”.

In the factor 4 column, the variables Open access

and Peer-review for scientific qualification have

high loadings of 0.693 and 0.622 respectively. This

indicates that factor 4 combines these two variables

and is named as “Wide Access”.

Further all the variables with high loadings are

combined with the concerned factor based on their

scores as shown in Table 4.

Thus, the 12 variables which were selected for

the study, using principle component analysis have

been reduced to 4 factor model and each factor

have been given a name which is associated with the

corresponding variables based on the values obtained

from the rotated component matrix table. The scree

plot highlighted in Chart 1 describes the factor loadings

of the 12 variables taken for the study.

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Table 4. Rotated Component Matrix

Component

Abstracting and indexing services

.128

0.134

.522

0.12

Open access

.106

.017

-.150

.693

Peer-review for scientific qualification

-.108

.070

.201

.580

Physical quality

.031

.615

.025

.252

Prestige

.602

.155

-.130

.023

Publisher

.295

.619

-.015

-.036

Standard Editorial Board

.430

-.127

.492

-.018

Confidentiality

-.016

.533

.200

-.040

Impact factor

.692

.149

.133

-.047

Timely publishing of articles

.633

.178

.157

-.003

Cost of publication

.652

.177

.154

.015

Possibility of easy Citation

.049

.526

.178

.007

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

a Rotation converged in 9 iterations.

Table 5: Variables identified for Factor Scores

S. No.

Factors

Prestige

Reputation

Impact factor

Timely publishing of articles

Cost of publication

Physical quality

Reliability

Publisher

Possibility of easy Citation

Standard Editorial Board

Standard Review

Possibility of easy Citation

Abstracting and indexing services

Open access

Wide Access

Peer-review for scientific qualification

CONCLUSION

Indexed journals are highly preferred to publish the

articles to gain high reputation and indexing facility

by the Research scholars and professionals. This has

been well proved through the factor analysis technique

which has been carried out in the study. The four factors

extracted nearly 47.37% of the total variance and it has

been named as “Reputation”, “Reliability”, “Standard

Review” and “Wide Access”. This study would certainly