Bibliometric analysis through methodological quality indicators of Spanish education journals indexed in JCR during the three year period 2014-2016

This study presents a bibliometric evaluation using methodological quality indicators of scientific production published during the three-year period from 2014 to 2016 in the seven Spanish journals in the field of education that are indexed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR): Revista de Psicodidactica, Comunicar, Revista de Educacion, Educacion XX1, Ensenanza de las Ciencias, Revista Espanola de Pedagogia and Porta Linguarum. Using a bibliometric/descriptive method, a quantitative analysis is presented of a sample of 479 articles selected through deliberate, non-probabilistic sampling. Overall, the results indicate that the evaluated journals have achieved high levels of fulfilment with respect to the proposed indicators of excellent methodological quality although certain journals were superior to others and although improvable methodological indicators were not ignored. These indicators were primarily related to a lack of specification regarding methodological approach, sampling strategy and quantitative (reliability and validity) as well as qualitative quality criteria. Finally, our empirical results suggest that the better considered a JCR journal is, the more likely it is to be credited with better methodological quality.