Content Analysis of Research Articles in Measurement and Evaluation Journals

This paper aims to identify types of data collection tools, data analysis methods, software and descriptive of participants, sample size, the number of authors, current trends in the choice of topics of research articles published in the measurement and evaluation journals indexed in Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) between 2012 and 2015. The population of this study whose model is a descriptive survey study is all the journals indexed in SSCI related to measurement and evaluation field. The sample is designated by using a criteria sampling from purpose sampling and was selected three journals which examined 358 papers. Data were analyzed using categorical and frequency analysis which are the forms of content analysis technique. According to the results of the study, “differential item functioning” was the most commonly studied field and data analysis method in all years. Besides, it was found that sample sizes of papers were quite high and half of these papers used simulated datasets. It was also determined that usage of the packages related to R software was increased.