Co-authorship networks and research impact: A social capital perspective

The impact of research work is related to a scholar's reputation and future promotions. Greater research impact not only inspires scholars to continue their research, but also increases the possibility of a larger research budget from sponsors. Given the importance of research impact, this study proposes that utilizing social capital embedded in a social structure is an effective way to achieve more research impact. The contribution of this study is to define six indicators of social capital (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, prolific co-author count, team exploration, and publishing tenure) and investigate how these indicators interact and affect citations for publications. A total of 137 Information Systems scholars from the Social Science Citation Index database were selected to test the hypothesized relationships. The results show that betweenness centrality plays the most important role in taking advantage of non-redundant resources in a co-authorship network, thereby significantly affecting citations for publications. In addition, we found that prolific co-author count, team exploration, and publishing tenure all have indirect effects on citation count. Specifically, co-authoring with prolific scholars helps researchers develop centralities and, in turn, generate higher numbers of citations. Researchers with longer publishing tenure tend to have higher degree centrality. When they collaborate more with different scholars, they achieve more closeness and betweenness centralities, but risk being distrusted by prolific scholars and losing chances to co-author with them. Finally, implications of findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Socialization into Sport: Parent and Child Reverse and Reciprocal Effects

Purpose: A signature characteristic of positive youth development (PYD) programs is the opportunity to develop life skills, such as social, behavioral, and moral competencies, that can be generalized to domains beyond the immediate activity. Although context-specific instruments are available to assess developmental outcomes, a measure of life skills transfer would enable evaluation of PYD programs in successfully teaching skills that youth report using in other domains. The purpose of our studies was to develop and validate a measure of perceived life skills transfer, based on data collected with The First Tee, a physical activity-based PYD program. Method: In 3 studies, we conducted a series of steps to provide content and construct validity and internal consistency reliability for the Life Skills Transfer Survey (LSTS), a measure of perceived life skills transfer. Results: Study 1 provided content validity for the LSTS that included 8 life skills and 50 items. Study 2 revealed construct validity (structural validity) through a confirmatory factor analysis and convergent validity by correlating scores on the LSTS with scores on an assessment tool that measures a related construct. Study 3 offered additional construct validity by reassessing youth 1 year later and showing that scores during both time periods were invariant in factor pattern, loadings, and variances and covariances. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated internal consistency reliability of the LSTS.Conclusion: Results from 3 studies provide evidence of content and construct validity and internal consistency reliability for the LSTS, which can be used in evaluation research with youth development programs.     

High School Value Climate as Related to Preferential Treatment of Athletes

This paper focuses on the importance of the high school value climate as a mediating variable in the analysis of behavior associated with sport participation. The findings suggest that athletes are accorded preferential treatment in those schools where sport is an important prestige-granting activity. In addition, the findings showed that the athletes were somewhat more conventional than the nonathletes; however, this conventionality was not associated with the school value climate.     

Media and Society

Ray Eldon Hiebert, Donald Ungurait and Thomas Bohn's Mass Media II: An Introduction to Modern Communication (New York: Longman, 1979—$11.95, paper).

Mass Media and Man's View of Society: A Conference Report and International Bibliography (International Association for Mass Communication Research, c/o Centre for Mass Communication Research, Yniversity of Leicester, 104 Regent Rd., Leicester, LE1 7LT, Ynited Kingdom—price not given, paper)

Perception Development Communication (New York and Munich: E.G. Saur Publishing, 1978—$12.00, paper)

Joseph Turow's Getting Books to Children: An Exploration of Publisher-Market Relations (Chicago: American Library Association, 1979—$8.50, paper)     

Triad philosophy and triad science based on triad logic

Based on a new ternary logic (triad logic), triad philosophy and triad science are introduced. In triad philosophy, triad ontology, triad methodology and triad epistemology have been developed. In triad science, The concept of quantity coordinate is introduced and that the idea of quantity-space-time cannot be separated is established. Einstein gravitational field, Maxwell electromagnetic field and Yang-Mills gauge field have been unified in form with a unified action. Eleven dimension field and vacuum are interpreted by the unified theory. A new triad cosmos model and the idea of substance generation have been proposed. With triad methodology, a new unified philosophical and scientific system has been established for combining all human knowledge together as a whole.