Search for: All records

Abstract Over the past 30 years, several reviews have examined scholarly contributions of individual researchers and institutions in the field of educational psychology (Fong et al., Educational Psychology Review 34:2379–2403, 2022; Greenbaum et al., Educational Psychology Review 28:215–223, 2016; Hsieh et al., Contemporary Educational Psychology 29:333–343, 2004; Jones et al., Contemporary Educational Psychology 35:11–16, 2010; Smith et al., Contemporary Educational Psychology 23:173–181, 1998; Smith et al., Contemporary Educational Psychology 28:422– 430, 2003). However, no reviews have specifically examined scholarly impact as measured by citations since (Walberg, Current Contents 22:5–14, 1990) did so over 34 years ago. The present review focused on the period from 1988 to 2023, identifying the most cited articles and authors since Walberg’s study that focused on the period from 1966–1988. Whereas most of the previous reviews have been limited in terms of brief time periods (e.g., six years) and a small set of journals (e.g., five), our scope included 12 educational psychology journals across 36 years. The most cited article (over 9000 times) by (Ryan and Deci, Contemporary Educational Psychology 25:54–67, 2000) had more than twice as many citations as the second most cited article by (Pintrich and Groot, Journal of Educational Psychology 82:33–40, 1990). Most of the top 30 most cited articles, including four of the top five, addressed the topic of motivation. With regard to highly cited authors, the top five were John Sweller, Richard E. Mayer, Fred Paas, Richard M. Ryan, and Reinhard Pekrun. Several of the 30 most cited authors have never appeared in previous lists of most productive authors. Finally, keyword and cluster analyses revealed most popular topics and collaborative networks among many of the most cited authors that may partly explain their productivity. Examining article and author impact is an important complement to productivity when considering scholarly contributions to the field of educational psychology. 

Cognitive load theory (CLT) has driven numerous empirical studies for over 30 years and is a major theme in many of the most cited articles published between 1988 and 2023. However, CLT articles have not been compared to other educational psychology research in terms of the research designs used and the extent to which recommendations for practice are justified. As Brady and colleagues found, a large percentage of the educational psychology articles reviewed were not experimental and yet frequently made specific recommendations from observational/correlational data. Therefore, in this review, CLT articles were examined with regard to the types of research methodology employed and whether recommendations for practice were justified. Across several educational psychology journals in 2020 and 2023, 16 articles were determined to directly test CLT. In contrast to other articles, which employed mostly observational methods, all but two of the CLT articles employed experimental or intervention designs. For the two CLT articles that were observational, recommendations for practice were not made. Reasons for the importance of experimental work are discussed.