Evaluation of h and h-type Indices for Research Performance at Researcher's Level

Abstract

Various new performance evaluation indices for impact have been proposed and studied in various contexts. This study carried out a quantitative evaluation of the case of Malaysian engineering researchers at the micro level using a scientometric approach. In order to understand the behavior of new developments, a comparative performance evaluation is carried out of h-index, a set of h-type indices along with publication and citation metrics. Findings are compared with earlier major studies. We looked for institutional h-index and researchers’ h-index scores and did not find any relationship. Exploratory Factor Analysis is employed to examine the valid categorization and to study the underlying dimensions of the studied metrics and indices. The inter-correlation among h-index, its variants, and traditional metrics is probed in detail. The h, q and g-indices along with publication and citation hold the position on ‘quantity of the productive core’, while the R index showed equal loading on both cores. For the case of Malaysian engineering researchers, two conspicuous findings are observed about the total citation and g-index. These have association with the first component named as ‘quantity of the productive core.’ Our findings strengthen the point that citation count has a strong association with the ‘quantity of the productive core’ and cannot be used as sole impact evaluation measure.