Research trends and academic research productivity of Ph.D. dissertations in Kerala Agricultural University

Abstract

The study entitled “Research trends and academic research productivity of Ph.D. dissertations in Kerala Agricultural University” was undertaken in the year 20120-21. The main objectives were assessment of research pattern and productivity of the Ph.D. research in terms of proportion published or cited. The study explored determinants of Ph.D. students’ research efficiency as perceived by the teachers and constraints and suggestions as perceived by students and teachers in the conduct of doctoral research will also be studied. The entire PhD theses submitted to College of Agriculture, Vellayani for the five years from 2015-2019 were enumerated, categorized under different divisions and will be subjected to qualitative content analysis. A total of 80 respondents comprising of 50 students and 30 teachers were selected for the study. During 2015- 2019, crop production division has maximum number of theses (33) submitted and overall theses submitted were maximum (24) during 2017. The result on content pattern of PhD research was conducted based on various parameters. In terms of crops/areas focused, majority (20.27%) of studies were concentrated on cereals (rice), followed by vegetables (14.87%), fruits (13.51%), and tuber crops (8.11%). For the period 2011-2014, 19 PC groups had 80 per cent or more untouched thrust areas 100 per cent of these belonged to Spices and Plantation Crops (SPC), Pulses and Oil Seeds (POS), Forage and Green Manure Crops (FGM), Gender studies (GS) and AgroEconomic Studies (AES). During 2015-2017, 14 PC groups were found to have 80 per cent or more untouched areas among which Floriculture (FL), Post-Harvest Technology (PHT), Sugar and Tuber Crops (STC) groups had 100 per cent of untouched areas. It was observed that over the years’ number of thrust areas decreased but the percentage of untouched areas showed an increasing trend. In case of number of objectives by using quartiles, all divisions showed medium range (2-4) of objectives with 82.43 per cent. On summarisation, majority (32.43%) of studies had two objectives. Overall data based on mean number of references using quartiles indicated that social science theses had low number of references (<223) while remaining divisions had medium range (223-369) of references. In the studies, 65.07 per cent of theses referred most from 2001 and above. Most commonly used research design among crop production theses was Randomised Block 228 Design (RBD) with 40.42 per cent, Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 47.06 per cent in crop protection, RBD and CRD both with 40.91 per cent among crop improvement theses, exploratory research design (60.00%) in social science and CRD and ex post facto design both with 50 per cent in community science. With the categorisation of statistical methods under seven categories, majority of the studies in crop production used parametric tests and methods (61.54%), basic statistics (47.72%) in crop protection, Parametric tests and methods (33.33%) in crop improvement, basic statistics (59.26%) in social science and Parametric tests and methods (35.30%) in community science. With reference to sample size, majority (50.00%) of Community Science department theses had less than hundred sample size. However, it was interesting to note that sample size in majority (60.00%) of theses under social science ranged from 201-300 and in remaining all divisions majority of theses had range 101- 200. In case of type of sampling methods, majority (40.00%) of the theses conducted studies using random sampling. Under social science division, majority (75.00%) of Agricultural Extension theses studied independent variables ranging from nine to thirty. Academic research productivity was assessed based on proportion published and cited. On perusal of data, crop production division had published two papers on an average (42.42%) and half of the community science studies had published more than two papers. To summarise, publications less than two accounted the most with 39.19 per cent. Publications in peer reviewed journals were categorised under different indexing lists where it was noted that majority of the publications (82.42%) belonged to National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) rated journals followed by Google scholar (12.12%), Copernicus index (2.42%), others (2.42%), University Grants Commission - Consortium for Academic Research and Ethics (UGC-CARE) list (1.21%) and Scopus index (0.61%). Citations distribution based on year showed that majority of theses (84.05%) cited were from 1991 and above whereas based on source it was found that among 35 types of sources identified journals were cited on majority among all divisions. Other types of major sources cited were books, proceedings, Master of Science (M.Sc.) theses, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) theses and e-resources. Geographic distribution of citations indicated that international publications were cited more compared to national publications among all departments except agricultural 229 extension. Among all departments, average number of citations from national and international publications were cited more in Community Science with 217 and 416 average number respectively. In terms of average number of citations, based on range highest range (272-843) was found in plant breeding and genetics department whereas average number of citations was observed highest in community science department (633) with range of 448-827. Attitude of students towards PhD research was studied. It was found that 74.00 per cent of students possessed good attitude and only 16.00 per cent of students had very good attitude towards PhD research. About 86.67 per cent of teachers perceived that students possessed good attitude towards research and 13.33 per cent teachers recognised that students had very good attitude towards doctoral research. On the whole in case of perception in adequacy based on research themes, teachers opined that there was 23.4 per cent of gap and students opined 32.20 per cent of gap which currently does not address the problems of Kerala agriculture. The major constraints in conducting doctoral research as perceived by students were insufficient funds (Rank 1), lack of advanced research facilities and equipments (Rank 2), and insufficient lab facilities (Rank 3). Insufficient lab facilities (Rank 1), lack of advanced research facilities and equipments (Rank 2) and insufficient funds (Rank 3) were perceived as constraints by teachers. In order to overcome the ascertained constraints suggestions as perceived by teachers were provision of central instrumentation facility, increasing contingent grants/funds, participation in external aided projects, exposure of students to advanced methods or equipments, enforcement of research collaborations in interdisciplinary or with other organisations/institutes (national or overseas), giving maximum exposure to students by participating in conferences and seminars (national or international) and also improving students research skills with proper training via lectures or practical classes that enhance their knowledge and skill before conducting research. In order to improve academic research productivity, it is necessary to encourage students in publishing more quality articles in peer reviewed journals with high NAAS ratings (6+ impact factor) and other similar indices and also conducting research with deliverable output through publications which is monitored and reviewed systematically.