global trend in studies of school governance: a ......global trend in studies of school governance:...

http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/index.asp 141 [email protected]

International Journal of Management (IJM) Volume 11, Issue 7, July 2020, pp. 141-158, Article ID: IJM_11_07_014

Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=7

ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510

DOI: 10.34218/IJM.11.7.2020.014

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

GLOBAL TREND IN STUDIES OF SCHOOL

GOVERNANCE: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Nguyen The Thang

The Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences,

101 Tran Hung Dao, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam

Dang Loc Tho

Hanoi Metropolitan University,

98 Duong Quang Ham, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam

Luong Dinh Hai, Nguyen Hong Lien

The Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences,

101 Tran Hung Dao, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Because the core values and rules of school governance have been proved vitally

important to make schools effective and efficient in terms of organization, separate

aspects of school governance have considerably been interested by many educational

researchers in recent years, but school governance has not been examined by

Bibliometric method. In this research, this method and other research tools were used

to examine the number of publications of school governance and principal

characteristics of these publications from the Scopus database, consisting of the most

cited papers, the main publishing sources and countries, the most influential authors

during the period between 1989 and 2019. The findings revealed that 6096 documents

covering a wide range of topics of the scientific journals. Besides the case of Nigeria,

the global productivity ranking was headed by developed countries including the

United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Ten authors who published 6 or 11

papers are identified, the most prolific authors are affiliated with some universities of

the countries mentioned above, and the 20 most cited papers are published in 20

journals. The most cited papers provide contributions focusing on social problems

affecting schools. These findings also explain that the number of publications of

school governance has increased in the last three decades and there have been the

significant changes in managing educational institutions based on the values of

governance.

Key words: Bibliometric method: Citation analysis, School governance, Scopus

database

Global Trend in Studies of School Governance: A Bibliometric Analysis


Cite this Article: Nguyen The Thang, Dang Loc Tho, Luong Dinh Hai and Nguyen

Hong Lien, Global Trend in Studies of School Governance: A Bibliometric Analysis,

International Journal of Management, 11(7), 2020, pp. 141-158.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=11&IType=7

1. INTRODUCTION

Over the past thirty years, the scientific understanding of the governance in education and

school has dramatically increased locally and internationally. Governance (Fenwick, 2006) is

how a system of control and accountability should be accurately implemented by various

actors (parents, community members, stakeholders and many others) in a school to achieve

the desired ends. Additionally, good governance (Sheng, 2009) has 8 characteristics

(consensus-oriented, participation, transparency, rule of law, responsiveness, equity and

inclusiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability).

In the context of Vietnam, the reform of the education management is associated with new

laws and legal documents considerably empowered educational institutions and made them

more highly competitive to meet the demands of the socialist-oriented market economy and

can be integrated with the development of education in the world. With regard to the state

educational system including general education needing to be inevitably decentralized and it’s

the process of responsibility and authority (consisting of administrative and management

functions) are being redesigned. Schools, communities and relations between stakeholders,

therefore, take more powerful roles in making decisions that they should be in schools

(Nguyen, 2016); moreover, that enables schools to implement their own curricula, methods of

education, to recruit and even dismiss teachers, to mobilize the resources needing for school

budgets (Pham, 2017). The schools have greater autonomy and should be held more

accountable (Dang, 2017), and these opposite sides should be considered as the key factors in

the overall responsibility for improving the outcome quality of learning in schools that

Vietnam is on its process (Pham, 2017). Obviously, domestic studies have focused on school

autonomy and accountability that can make school governance more effective.

In reference to typically international documents, each school has each its own governors

( Balarin, 2008), there are parent governors, staff governors, community governors, local

authority governors, foundation governors, partnership governors, sponsor governors, and

associate members, and varied governing roles are (1) setting a vision and targets, (2)

supervising and evaluating effective board performance, (3) approving the budget, (4)

ensuring the accountability, (5) appointing a new principal, etc. Moreover, sharing the same

roles and responsibilities of governing bodies, but the different region has different ways of

governance (Wilkinson, 2017) that the United Kingdom is an example. The Federal

Democratic Republic of Nepal (The World Bank n.d.) has another challenge of school

governance; for example, the participation of all organizations in the school, participation in

planning, management and supervision, personnel, managing resources, monitoring, school

policies and regulations, transparency, and accountability. Apart from that the relationship

between school governance and educational outcomes is complex (OECD, 2013) because

relationships are diverse and system-dependent, and successful schools tend to be more

autonomous in program design and evaluation, seeking feedback from students for quality

improvement. Particularly, for a group of schools, the socio-economic conditions of the

students have a great influence on the learning achievements, whereas these conditions have

lower influence on schools uses feedback and teacher supervision. In terms of models of

school governance, three models are identified (National Association of Independent Schools,

n.d.) including the "parents' cooperative model, the Carver model, the corporate model, and

Nguyen The Thang, Dang Loc Tho, Luong Dinh Hai and Nguyen Hong Lien


each of them have both sides and negative side should be adjusted in practice. The two others

(McCrone & George, 2011) named the stakeholder model, the business model.

2. NEED AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE STUDY

Generally, these studies are limited to certain features of school governance; however, there is

no overall picture of school governance to answer remaining questions:

Question 1. How many publications of school governance had been published in the period of

1989 and 2019 and what are their characteristics?

Question 2. Which authors have the most influence in this field?

Question 3. What are the main sources of publishing in this period?

Question 4. Which countries have the most influence on this field of research in the world?

Question 5: And which are the most cited papers in the scientific world?

3. METHODOLOGY

These days, literature reviews has been commonly summarized and synthesized by

Bibliometric analysis that often combined with related methods (informetrics, scientometrics,

webometrics), subordinate tools as Gephi, HistCite, Publish or Perish, Scholarometer

(Ellegaard & Wallin, 2015) and content or citation analysis (Wallin, 2005). Thus, this method

was used in mapping a global study of governance in secondary schools.

3.1. Data Collection

This bibliometric desk-based analysis of the Scopus database was conducted with the time

frame limited to the period between 1989 and 2019. The primary way of search for this

research was developed by using the terms "middle school*", "secondary school*”, “high

school*", "junior high school*", "senior high school*", “govern*” were connected with the

Boolean operators: “OR”, “AND”. The final query in advance search at 9:10 AM Feb 23,

2020, was:

TITLE-ABS-KEY (("middle school*" OR "secondary school*" OR "high school*" OR

"secondary education" OR "junior high school*" OR "senior high school*") AND govern*)

AND PUBYEAR >1988 AND PUBYEAR < 2020

The general search query achieved 6187 records were collected from subsets whose 2000

records fewer regulated by Elsevier. The 91 records were excluded because of unnamed

authors. The database with 6096 recorded was analyzed by R application with “Bibliometrix”

package ( Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) for statistical computing with publication country,

publication year, published author, publishing journal, published document type. No

restrictions in languages were applied to the database search.

3.2. Data Extraction

For each document, data on the year of publication, the journal-title, subject category,

keywords, the authors’ names, institutional affiliations, and country were downloaded online

through the website http://db.vista.gov.vn/[Accessed on 23 February 2020] that is an

information service provided by National Agency for Science and Technology Information,

the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam. The bibliometric analysis approach was

used to analyze published data of the most relevant authors and the most influential authors,

the most relevant sources and the most impacted sources, the most cited documents, the most

relevant countries, and the most cited countries (Randhawa et al., 2016).



3.3. Data Analysis

In this research, data were analyzed including the primary information (in the period of 1989

and 2019), languages, types, authors, sources, universities, countries and citations. Data were

summarized as frequencies and percentages for categorical items in the tables. The diagrams

were utilized to represent the data visualization (growth rate per year, prolific authors)

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Main information is that the number of analyzed publications, authors and publishing sources

(Table 1). Accordingly, 6096 documents were published at 2980 sources including journals,

books, conference proceedings, and others. A total of 14343 authors participated in writing

those documents, of which, 2141 single authors, 2004 authors of single-authored documents,

and 12339 authors of multi-authored documents. In the period of 1989 and 2019, the average

author rate per published document was 2.35%; the average citation time per each document

was 8.21%.

Table 1 Summarized data of school governance published in the period of 1989 and 2019

Descriptions Number

Documents 6096

Sources 2980

Keywords Plus 10131

Author's Keywords 10797

Average citations per documents 8.21

Authors 14343

Author Appearances 16125

Authors of single-authored documents 2004

Authors of multi-authored documents 12339

Single-authored documents 2141

Documents per Author 0.425

Authors per Document 2.35

Co-Authors per Documents 2.65

The top 10 languages using in school governance publishing based on number of

publications (Table 2). Most of the documents were published in English with a rate of more

than 91%, Russian, Spanish documents with 1.89 % and 1.61 % respectively. Those published

in other languages such as Portuguese, Chinese, French, and others are only accounted for less

than 1 % of the total published documents. Clearly, English is the most popular language for

publishing of these research results.

Table 2 The 10 most languages in publishing in school governance in the period of 1989 and 2019

(n = 6069)

Languages Number Percent

English 5564 91.27

Russian 115 1.89

Spanish 98 1.61

Portuguese 54 0.89

Chinese 41 0.67

French 38 0.62

Japanese 33 0.54

Spanish 15 0.25

Korean 10 0.16

Turkish 10 0.16

Croatian 10 0.16



The types of documents based on the publications, journal articles were the main form of

publications with the largest number (n = 4055 - 75.30 %). The proceeding articles ranked the

second (n = 532 - 8.73 %), followed by book chapters (n = 411 - 6.74 %) and review (n = 355

- 5.82 %). With 1.46%, reference books ranked 5th in the list of document types in this field.

Other types made up of less than 1 % in common. In which, Conference Review and Data

Paper constitute the least number of publications, with only 1 per each.

Table 3 Document types in school governance published in the period of 1989 and 2019 (n = 6069)

Document types Number Percent

Article 4590 75.30

Conference paper 532 8.73

Book chapter 411 6.74

Review 355 5.82

Book 89 1.46

Note 29 0.48

Short survey 23 0.38

Article in press 21 0.34

Editorial 16 0.26

Letter 12 0.20

Erratum 10 0.16

Retracted 6 0.10

Conference review 1 0.02

Data paper 1 0.02

The number of annual publications tends to increase (Figure 1). The average annual

growth rate is 10.11 % although this rate from time to time is uneven. There are three periods

during which the number of publications raised rapidly, namely: the period of 2004 - 2007

with the highest rate, nearly 90 % from 114 to 216; the period 2008 - 2011 with an increase

over 72 % from 204 to 351; from 2016 to 2019, 190 additional documents were published,

from 402 to 592 (above 47 %), although many publications published in 2019 have not been

fully updated to the database at the time of the research.

Figure 1 Annually growth rate of school governance documents published in the period of 1989 and

2019



Figure 2 illustrates the number of publications of school governance per author. The

Figure shows that the majority of authors with the number of 13076 people, corresponding to

91.17 % with a single publication. The percentage of authors who have 2 publications is

6.70%, those have three publications are 1.34%, and this proportion decreases gradually as the

number of publications increases to 11. Overall, the frequency distribution of scientific

productivity in this research field does not fit with the discrete Lotka power function (Lotka,

1926) (the dotted line in Figure 2).

Figure 2 Author productivity of school governance documents published in the period of 1989 and

2019

The top 20 scientists, who are the most prolific authors, had scientific research results in

this field during the period (Table 4). In terms of the number of publications, Liu J. and Wang

L. have been at the top with 11 documents, followed by Zhang Y. with 9 documents, Li L.

and Rozelle S. with 8 documents per each. Researchers who published the most research

papers working in the United States and China. Liu J. mentioned above is working for the

Department of History, Central Michigan University, United States. Besides, most authors in

China with 6 people named Wang L., Zhang Y., Li L., Li X., Zhang X., Chen X., and Liu Y.

In term of articles fractionalized, headed the list is Mervis J, followed by Liu J. and

Fernandes-Alcantara A.L., and all of them are working in the United States. Following them,

Taylor A. ranks the 4th and working in Canada, Wu X. ranks the 5th and in China.

Table 4 Author productivity of school governance documents published in the period of 1989 and

2019

Authors Documents Authors Fraction Documents Fractionalized

Liu, J. 11 Mervis, J. 7

Wang, L. 11 Liu, J. 6.81

Zhang, Y. 9 Fernandes-Alcatara, A.L. 4

Li, L. 8 Taylor, A. 3.83

Rozellr, S. 8 Wu, X. 3.67

Chriqui, J.F. 7 Ho, W.C. 3.50

Lee, J. 7 Savage, G.C. 3.33

Li, X. 7 Zhang, L.F. 3.33

Mervis, J. 7 Journell, W. 3.25

Smith, A. 7 Wang, L. 3.18

Zhang, L. 7 Yamada, S. 3.03

Zhang, X. 7 Li, X. 3.02



Chen, X. 6 Adeyemi, B.A. 3

Cross, D. 6 Dobbins, M. 3

Fraser, B.J. 6 Forsey, M. 3

Hodgson, A. 6 Fournier, A. 3

Kim, Y. 6 Hodgson, A. 3

Liu, Y. 6 Lawal, B.O. 3

Spours, K. 6 London, N.A. 3

Taber, D.R. 6 Mafora, P. 3

The period before 2006, a few papers were published, and then apart from the publications

of many new researchers, most of a number of publications of the top 20 authors (Figure 3)

published in the period of 2006 to the present. And in the following period, the number of

publications as well as the number of citations tended to increase. In the last 3 years, 4 people

who have not published any publications are Chriqui J.F., Mervis J., Cross D. and Taber D.R.,

in which, Taber D.R. and Chriqui J.F. have done only collaborated research during this

period.

Figure 3 The top 20 authors of school governance documents published in the period of 1989 and

2019

The impact factors of the top 20 most influential authors in the field of study were

organized by h_index (Table 5). Accordingly, Chriqui J.R. is at the top with index h_index =

7 although other indicators are not higher than other authors. Currie G. has the highest

number of citations (231) and average citations (46.20). Liu J. and Wang L. have the greatest

number of publications with 11.



Table 5 The top 20 impact authors of school governance documents published in the period of 1989

and 2019

Authors h_index Total

Citations

No of

publications

Citations per

publication

Published

Year

Chriqui, J.F. 7 138 7 19.71 2012

Smith, A. 6 127 7 18.14 1995

Li, X. 5 87 7 12.43 2005

Hodgson, A. 5 63 6 10.50 2006

Spours. K. 5 63 6 10.50 2006

Taber. D,R, 5 103 6 17.17 2012

Chaloupka, F.J. 5 104 5 20.80 2007

Currie, G. 5 231 5 46.20 2005

West, A. 5 171 5 34.20 2000

Zhang, L.F. 5 150 5 30.00 2002

Liu, J. 4 52 11 4.73 2008

Wang, L. 4 81 11 7.36 2008

Li, L. 4 34 8 4.25 2000

Rozelle, S. 4 80 8 10.00 2010

Cross, D. 4 143 6 23.83 2005

Fraser, B.J. 4 153 6 25.50 1989

Gorard, S. 4 51 5 10.20 2001

Taylor, A. 4 52 5 10.40 1998

Wang, J. 4 68 5 13.60 2009

Fitz, J. 4 51 4 12.75 1997

The top 20 most relevant sources and most impact sources are classified (Table 6). The

leading was the Public Administration Issues journal (Russia) of the group Q3. Ranked the

2nd is the Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (Italy), belongs to the group Q4.

Following in the 3rd is the International Journal of Educational Development (the United

Kingdom) in the group Q1. In the journals mentioned above, only the International Journal of

Educational Development has scope for Education. In addition, the list also includes 06

journals of the group Q1, including BMC Public Health (the United Kingdom), Journal of

Education Policy (the United Kingdom), British Educational Research Journal (the United

Kingdom), Journal of School Health (the United States), PLOS One (the United States),

Economics of Education Review the United Kingdom).

Table 6 The top 20 relevant sources of school governance documents published in the period of 1989

and 2019 (n = 6069)

Sources N % Country Quartile

Public Administration Issues 63 1.03 Russia Q3

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 47 0.77 Italy Q4

International Journal of Educational Development 44 0.72 UK Q1

Indian Journal of Public Health Research and

Development

35 0.57 India Q4

Asee Annual Conference and Exposition Conference

Proceedings

34 0.56 US NA

BMC Public Health 34 0.56 UK Q1

Alberta Journal of Educational Research 29 0.48 Canada Q3

Research Papers in Education 28 0.46 UK Q2

Journal of Education Policy 26 0.43 UK Q1

Journal of Physics: Conference Series 26 0.43 UK Q3



ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 23 0.38 US NA

British Educational Research Journal 23 0.38 UK Q1

Journal of School Health 23 0.38 US Q1

PLOS One 22 0.36 US Q1

Economics of Education Review 21 0.34 UK Q1

Library Philosophy and Practice 21 0.34 US Q3

Asian Social Science 20 0.33 Canada Q3

International Organizations Research Journal 19 0.31 Russia Q3

International Journal of Educational Management 18 0.30 UK Q2

Education in the Asia-Pacific Region 17 0.28 NA NA

The h_index represented the impact factor index of the top 20 publishing sources that

have the most impact on the research area (Table 7). Accordingly, the International Journal of

Educational Development (the United Kingdom) and the Journal of Education Policy (the

United Kingdom) have the highest index with h_index = 13, topping the list, and the Journal

of School Health (the United States) is following with h_index = 12. The United Kingdom

journals are the majority of the list with 16 in 20 journals. There are two journals of the

United States named the Journal of School Health, and PLOS One. The Netherlands has two

journals including the Journal of Adolescent Health and American Journal of Preventive

Medicine. According to the ranking, 17 in 20 journals are in the group Q1, and 3 are in the

group Q2.

Table 7 The top 20 impact sources based on the h_index of school governance documents published

in the period of 1989 and 2019

Sources h_ind

ex

Total

Citations

No. of

publicatio

ns

TC/NP Publish

ed

Year

International Journal of Educational

Development

13 426 44 9.68 9.68

Journal of Education Policy 13 688 26 26.46 26.46

Journal of School Health 12 507 23 22.04 22.04

BMC Public Health 11 349 34 10.26 10.26

British Educational Research Journal 10 457 23 19.87 19.87

Journal of Adolescent Health 10 362 16 22.63 22.63

Research Papers in Education 9 268 28 9.57 9.57

PLOS One 9 369 22 16.77 16.77

Economics of Education Review 9 394 21 18.76 18.76

Sport, Education and Society 9 429 14 30.64 30.64

Journal of Educational Administration 9 335 12 27.92 27.92

Social Science and Medicine 9 185 12 15.42 15.42

International Journal of Science Education 8 189 17 11.12 11.12

Journal of Curriculum Studies 8 219 16 13.69 13.69

Oxford Review of Education 8 302 15 20.13 20.13

Educational Management Administration

and Leadership

8 121 14 8.64 8.64

Preventive Medicine 8 240 14 17.14 17.14

American Journal of Preventive Medicine 8 281 11 25.55 25.55

International Journal of Educational

Management

7 297 18 16.50 16.50

Educational Studies 7 207 17 12.18 12.18



The University of California (the United States) had 75 publications and leading the top of

20 universities by number of publications in the period of 1989 and 2019 (Table 8).

University of Ibadan (Nigeria) ranked second with 55 publications, followed by the

University of London (the United Kingdom) in 3rd with 54 publications. In this list, the

United States had the largest number of universities with 6, Australia had 5, Nigeria had 3,

and the United Kingdom had 2. Other countries include Russian, Hong Kong and Singapore

in the list; each country had 1 university that published its own research results of governance

in schools.

Table 8 The top 20 relevant universities of school governance documents published in the period of

1989 and 2019

Universities N % Country Rank in

country *

University of California 75 1.23 US 13

University of Ibadan 55 0.9 Nigeria 501 - 600

University of London 54 0.89 UK 401 - 500

Deakin University 52 0.85 Australia 301 - 350

Monash University 45 0.74 Australia 75

University of Melbourne 45 0.74 Australia 32

National Research University Higher School of

Economics

42 0.69 Russia NA

University of Toronto 41 0.67 Canada 18

University of Hong Kong 40 0.66 Hong Kong 35

University of Newcastle 36 0.59 Australia 301 - 350

Nanyang Technological University 35 0.57 Singapore 48

University of Minnesota 34 0.56 US 79

Obafemi Awolowo University 33 0.54 Nigeria NA

Arizona State University 30 0.49 US 155

Stanford University 30 0.49 US 4

University of Queensland 30 0.49 Australia 66

University of Michigan 29 0.48 US 21

University of Washington 29 0.48 US 26

University of Cambridge 28 0.46 UK 3

University of Nigeria 28 0.46 Nigeria 1001+

Note: based on The World University Ranking, 15 April 2020, available from

https://www.timeshighereducation.com

There are 20 countries which have the greatest publications in this area (Table 9). It can be

seen that the United States is at the top with 2685 publications, accounting for more than

44%. This ratio is much higher than that of the second one, the United Kingdom, with 936

publications and the rate of more than 15%. Next is Australia with 882 publications, accounts

for more 14%. In this list, there is an appearance of Indonesia which country is ranked the 7th,

above some other developed countries such as Japan, Spain, South Korea, Netherlands,

Germany and France. This result shows how school governance had been researched in

Indonesia (Lotka, 1926). One of their approaches is to carry out multinational research

activities with Indonesian core researcher (e.g. RISE - Research on Improving Systems of

Education) or implement strategic research cooperation with universities in the world (e.g.

Australian National University)



Table 9 The top 20 countries of school governance documents published in the period of 1989 and

2019

Countries Number Percent

US 2685 44.05

UK 936 15.35

Australia 882 14.47

Nigeria 546 8.96

Canada 403 6.61

China 352 5.77

Indonesia 306 5.02

Japan 273 4.48

India 271 4.45

South Africa 246 4.04

Malaysia 210 3.44

Brazil 204 3.35

Spain 168 2.76

South Korea 163 2.67

Taiwan 162 2.66

Pakistan 120 1.97

Netherlands 108 1.77

Germany 107 1.76

Iran 101 1.66

France 94 1.54

The top 20 countries ranked by the number of corresponding authors with the number of

publications (Table 10). The United States was ranked at the first with 930 publications

equivalent to approximately 24.91%, the United Kingdom was is the second with 409

publications, accounting for about 10.96%, Australia was the next country (n = 297; 9.96 %).

In these 20 countries, France was ranked the last (n = 33; 0.88 %). This data shows that the

authors of the United States have made a considerable contribution to the researches and the

publications of high school governance.

Table 10 The top 20 countries of corresponding authors of school governance documents published in

the period of 1989 and 2019

Countries Number Percent SCP (Single Country Publications)

MCP (Multiple Country Publications)

MCP/SCP

ratio

US 930 24.91 830 100 0.11

United Kingdom 409 10.96 366 43 0.11

Australia 297 7.96 255 42 0.14

Nigeria 188 5.04 177 11 0.06

Canada 136 3.64 119 17 0.13

China 108 2.89 81 27 0.25

Hong Kong 93 2.49 77 16 0.17

India 92 2.46 80 12 0.13

Indonesia 92 2.46 86 6 0.07

Brazil 85 2.28 77 8 0.09

South Africa 84 2.25 78 6 0.07

Japan 82 2.20 75 7 0.09

Korea 79 2.12 71 8 0.10

Malaysia 72 1.93 54 18 0.25

Spain 51 1.37 47 4 0.08



Taiwan 50 1.34 46 4 0.08

Netherlands 38 1.02 31 7 0.18

Germany 34 0.91 28 6 0.18

Turkey 34 0.91 31 3 0.09

France 33 0.88 29 4 0.12

Top 20 countries are categorized by the greatest number of cited documents (Table 11).

Figures show that the United States is leading the list with 15084 citation times and the

average number of citations per document is 16.22 times. The United Kingdom was ranked

the 2nd with 5062 cited times, however, that number represents a big gap compared to the

United States. Following that, Australia with 4549 citations was ranked in the 3rd. In this list,

Korea had the smallest number of citations per document, the value is 2.95.

Table 11 The top 20 countries of total citations of school governance documents published in the

period of 1989 and 2019

Countries Total Citations Average Document Citations

US 15084 16.22

United Kingdom 5062 12.38

Australia 4549 15.32

Canada 1493 10.98

Hong Kong 1280 13.76

Nigeria 843 4.48

China 638 5.91

India 455 4.95

Sweden 450 15.00

South Africa 434 5.17

Japan 403 4.92

Kenya 329 12.65

Netherlands 322 8.47

Spain 319 6.26

New Zealand 306 11.77

Brazil 296 3.48

Israel 246 10.70

Ireland 244 13.56

Korea 233 2.95

Singapore 231 10.50

The top 20 documents are described by the largest number of international citations (Table

12). The first ranking document has 1361 citations, 90 times per year on average. The study

identified the unintended pregnancy rate to make policy on reproductive health services for

women in the United States including female high school students (Finer & Henshaw, 2006).

The second-ranking document, which studies the policies of federal, state, local, and school

on physical activities and food issues at high schools in the United States (Story at el. 2009),

had been cited 381 times. The next one had 308 citations, provides recommendations on the

role of 15-year-old students and above in maintaining community prosperity (Youniss, 1997).

The research topics of the remaining documents on this list are diverse. Watt (2000)

investigated the changing behaviour of self-assessment of English and Maths learning

outcomes for first-year lower secondary school students in the United Kingdom. Bitler and

Currie (2005) evaluated the effectiveness of a special nutrition supplement program for

pregnant and newborn babies in the United States. Caldwell (1992) recommended



contraceptive methods for high school girls. Soutar and Turner (2002) assess the priorities of

universities for high school athletes in Australia. The problem of minimizing the harmful

effects of alcohol and marijuana was studied by Silins. (2014), McBride (2004), DiNardo and

Lemieux (2001), Kirk (2005), Curtner and Smith (1999) were interested in changing the

approach to physical education. Bettinger (2012) assessed the roles of information and cost

supports in universities for low-income families of high school students. Twenge (2012)

considered the differences between young people in different stages of development. Angrist

(2002), Braun (2010) studied on the environment of policy-making. Rudduck and McIntyre

(2007) explored the learning improvement for high school students through school counseling

or Heck (1990) researched the impact of leadership behavior of principals in elementary and

secondary school on student achievement.

Table 12 The top 20 documents of total citations of school governance documents published in the

period of 1989 and 2019

Author(s) Documents Sources Total

Citation

Total

Citation

per Year

Finer and

Henshaw (2006)

Disparities in rates of unintended

pregnancy in the United States,

1994 and 2001

Perspectives on

Sexual and

Reproductive Health

1361 90.73

Story et al.

(2009)

Schools and obesity prevention:

Creating school environments and

policies to promote healthy eating

and physical activity

Milbank Quarterly 385 32.08

Youniss et al.

(1997)

What we know about engendering

civic identity

American Behavioral

Scientist

375 15.63

Watt (2000) Measuring attitudinal change in

mathematics and English over the

1st year of junior high school: A

multidimensional analysis

Journal of

Experimental

Education

308 22.00

Keefer (2007) Clientelism, credibility, and the

policy choices of young

democracies

American Journal of

Political Science

265 18.93

Bettinger et al.

(2012)

The role of application assistance

and information in college

decisions: Results from the h&r

block fafsa experiment

Quarterly Journal of

Economics

253 28.11

Twenge et al.

(2012)

Generational differences in young

adults' life goals, concern for

others, and civic orientation, 1966-

2009

Journal of Personality

and Social

Psychology

241 26.78

Angrist et al.

(2002)

Vouchers for private schooling in

Colombia: Evidence from a

randomized natural experiment

American Economic

Review

217 11.42

Caldwell et al.

(1992)

Fertility decline in Africa: A new

type of transition?

Population &

Development Review

206 7.10

Soutar and

Turner (2002)

Students' preferences for

university: A conjoint analysis

International Journal

of Educational

Management

206 10.84

Heck et al. (1990) Instructional leadership and school

achievement: Validation of a caUSl

model

Educational

Administration

Quarterly

192 6.19

Kirk (2005) Physical education, youth sport and

lifelong participation: The

importance of early learning

experiences

European Physical

Education Review

188 11.75

Silins et al. Young adult sequelae of adolescent The Lancet 188 26.86



(2014) cannabis use: An integrative

analysis

Psychiatry

Braun et al.

(2010)

Policy enactments in the UK

secondary school: Examining

policy, practice and school

positioning

Journal of Education

Policy

178 16.18

Rudduck and

McIntyre (2007)

Improving learning through

consulting pupils

Improving Learning

Through Consulting

Pupils

167 11.93

Curtner and

Smith (1999)

The more things change the more

they stay the same: Factors

influencing teachers' interpretations

and delivery of national curriculum

physical education

Sport, Education and

Society

155 7.05

McBride et al.

(2004)

Harm minimization in school drug

education: Final results of the

School Health and Alcohol Harm

Reduction Project (SHAHRP)

Addiction 150 8.82

Finkelstein et al.

(2008)

School food environments and

policies in US public schools

Pediatrics 142 10.92

Littlewood

(2007)

Communicative and task-based

language teaching in East Asian

classrooms

Language Teaching 139 9.93

Bitler and Currie

(2005)

Does WIC work? The effects of

WIC on pregnancy and birth

outcomes

Journal of Policy

Analysis and

Management

139 8.69

With over 6000 research papers, which were primarily published in English, mentioned

issues of school governance. it is possibly because English is a common language in

publishing the scientific results (Jenkins ,2011) and the publications of school governance. it

is also because most of these research articles must be written in English was the first

requirements of many journals (Flowerdew, 2015), and it is likely that the research documents

would be more common in the public eye (He . 2012). the findings indicated that the number

of these papers annually increased, especially in the early 2000s because many new scholars

published their research results as a result of policy changes affected into education sectors of

OECD members (Mundy & Verger, 2015), such as millennium development summit and

millennium development declaration. The various terms relevant to school governance were

used in the publications represented in the educational contexts of each country, for example,

cuts to student subsidies, loan schemes and taxes on graduates, etc. obviously, English and

policy changes in OECD of the period are reasons why these research papers published in

English.

The most prolific authors, who were mainly American and Chinese on the top of twenty,

had about between 6 and 11 papers; however, their contributions to the domain of school

governance were different because the American scholars played key roles in these

publications while their Chinese researchers were primarily in the parts of cooperating with

counterparts working in other countries. The year of 2006 marked the two opposite trends in

the number of research documents of school governance published during the period,

especially after the year 2006 the publications increased steadily caused by the trends of

decentralization and marketization of the policy changes in higher education and the Office of

International Education in 2008 was found (Li & Yang, 2014). Exceptionally, one of the

authors got the highest cited but other indicators were lower the indicators of others.

Overall, most of the research issues of governance in secondary school and its research

results, which had the most influential in researching on governance themes of other



countries, were published in the developed nations. It can be said that the United Kingdom

journals had the most impact on school governance studies while the United States had six

universities in the list of the most relevant affiliations. it was noticeable that the university of

Ibadan was at the top of three universities because of its research paper numbers and this was

one of the best quality universities in Nigeria in the year 2020[UniRank, accessed on 13 May

15, 2020, available from https://www.4icu.org/ng/]. According to Maringe and Ojo (2017), it

had outstanding achievements in doing researches as the result of a reforming autonomy of

higher education in the year of 2005. Especially, there are two authors in Nigeria on this list,

which can be explained by pressure to develop good national code of corporate

governance[Ozili, P. K. (2020). Corporate governance research in Nigeria: a review].

The United State was by far the most number of publications of school governance, but

the United Kingdom, which has the Journal of School Health and Journal of Education Policy

especially, was the most influential country in this field compared with other countries in this

study. These aspects, which were relevant to governing bodies and how functional of these

bodies should be, are likely as the results of top priorities to put good governance values of

the educational policies into effect in the two countries. Particularly, some developing

countries like China, Russia, Nigeria, and Indonesia were increasingly interested in

researching and publishing research results in the area of school governance. The case of

Nigeria, for example, the topics studied by this country were how to integrate environmental

education into social science curricula, how aware of secondary teachers of drug abuse,

maternal formal education and the four-child policy (Opaneye, 1990), motivation and its

impact on student’s academic achievement or causes of poor academic performance (Asikhia,

2010; Tella, 2007). Indonesia was another example, this country was one of the ten countries

borrowed money to invest in education during the period of 1987 and 2012 (Mundy &

Verger, 2015), the issues were researched are information asymmetry, the excellent school,

chemistry-learning competencies (Adlim et al., 2014), teachers' strategy in implementing

English curriculum and national education policy-based ICT model (Elmunsyah, 2014). And

a great number of articles on school governance from these countries represents the tend to

apply core values of governance to schools and this seemly leads to policy changes in by

educational policies on how to make schools better and more effective.

Globally, the most reference values are the publications in the United States, and

conversely, those are published in Korea. And most of the papers are articles, followed by

conference articles. Learning attainments are not the contents of these papers but are the

reproductive health services for high school girls, physical education, and school nutrition; to

minimizing the harmful effects of addictive substances and drugs, educational policies,

educational outcomes, supporting the poor students and how to solve these problems by

viable solutions.

There are some limitations to this research. The data were only collected from the Scopus

database, so if other databases had been collected and analyzed, the research would be more

informative. Besides, collaborative research into school governance among authors, a group

of authors, institutions and nations has not been discussed in this article.

5. CONCLUSION

In the period of three decades, studies in school governance reveal some marked features.

That is the scientific world was considerably interested in high school governance represented

by the numbers of publications published rapidly from the early years of the 2000s, and more

education research projects invested by countries was the main result of rapid publications in

the late period. That is the research themes are varied, especially the school governance is

frequently associated with social issues that are becoming more influent at school. Obviously,



the United State of America and the United Kingdom are currently the world centers of

researching into school governance, which one produced the largest research papers and the

other hold the most influential research papers. That is the cooperation or networks among

countries, universities, and scientists have been formed, but need further studies to clarify or

illustrate these networks in detail. It can be said that issues related to governance have been

widely studied in the world and tend to grow in the years to come as core values in school

governance have been much more made use of in advanced countries, and especially these

values have been gradually assimilated into education of developing countries.

Apart from that, further studies that should be taken are what are different in values of

governance are being applied to education sectors between the advanced countries and

developing countries both in theory and practices? What relations of the education itself and

between education and other sectors have been changed as the governance is applied? What

training and retraining activities should be provided by educational training institutions for the

change of every single educational player to meet the demands of education governance?

REFERENCES

[1] Adlim, M., S, S., Ali, H., Ibrahim, A., Umar, H., Ismail, K., Gani, U. A., Hasan, I., & Yasin,

B. (2014). Assessing chemistry-learning competencies of students in isolated rural senior high

schools by using the national examination: A case study of Simeulue Island, Indonesia.

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 12, 817-839.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-013-9440-x

[2] Angrist, J., Bettinger, E., Bloom, E., King, E., & Kremer, M. (2002). Vouchers for private

schooling in Colombia: Evidence from a randomized natural experiment. American Economic

Review 92(5), 1535-1558.

[3] Aria & Cuccurullo. (2017). Bibliometrix : An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping

analysis. Journal of Informetrics, 11(4), 959–975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2017.08.007

[4] Asikhia, O. A. (2010). Students and teachers’ perception of the causes of poor academic

performance in Ogun State secondary schools [Nigeria]: Implications for counseling for

national development. European Journal of Social Sciences, 13(2), 229-242.

[5] Balarin, M., Brammer, S., James, C., & Mccormack, M. (2008). The School Governance

Study. London, UK: Business in the Community.

[6] Bettinger, E. P., Long, B. T., Oreopoulos, P., & Sanbonmatsu, L. (2012). The role of

application assistance and information in college decisions: Results from the H&R Block

FAFSA experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(3), 1205-1242.

[7] Bitler, M. P., & Currie, J. (2005). Does WIC work? The effects of WIC on pregnancy and

birth outcomes. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management: The Journal of the Association

for Public Policy Analysis and Management, 24(1), 73-91.

[8] Braun, A., Maguire, M., & Ball, S. J. (2010). Policy enactments in the UK secondary school:

Examining policy, practice and school positioning. Journal of Education Policy, 25(4), 547-

560.

[9] Caldwell, J. C., Orubuloye, I. O., & Caldwell, P. (1992). Fertility decline in Africa: A new

type of transition?. Population and Development Review, 211-242.

[10] Curtner & Smith, M. D. (1999). The more things change the more they stay the same: Factors

influencing teachers' interpretations and delivery of national curriculum physical

education. Sport, Education and Society, 4(1), 75-97.

[11] Dang, T.T.H, (2017). Autonomy and accountability based on a systematic approach to a better

educational achievement. National Institute of Education Management (2), 55-56



[12] DiNardo, J., & Lemieux, T. (2001). Alcohol, marijuana, and American youth: the unintended

consequences of government regulation. Journal of Health Economics, 20(6), 991-1010.

[13] Ellegaard, O., & Wallin, J. A. (2015). The bibliometric analysis of scholarly production: How

great is the impact?. Scientometrics, 105(3), 1809-1831.

[14] Elmunsyah, H. (2014). A national education policy-based ICT model for Indonesian

vocational high schools (VHS). Global Journal of Engineering Education, 16(3), 136-140.

[15] Fenwick W. (2006). Encyclopedia of Leadership and Administration Volume 1 A-K. Sage

Publications.

[16] Finer, L. B., & Henshaw, S. K. (2006). Disparities in rates of unintended pregnancy in the

United States, 1994 and 2001. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 38(2), 90-96.

[17] Finkelstein, D. M., Hill, E. L., & Whitaker, R. C. (2008). School food environments and

policies in US public schools. Pediatrics, 122(1), e251-e259.

[18] Flowerdew, J. (2015). Some thoughts on English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP)

and related issues. Language Teaching, 48(2), 250-262.

[19] He, Y., Chen, Q., & Alden, D. L. (2012). Consumption in the public eye: The influence of

social presence on service experience. Journal of Business Research, 65(3), 302-310.

[20] Heck, R. H., Larsen, T. J., & Marcoulides, G. A. (1990). Instructional leadership and school

achievement: Validation of a causal model. Educational Administration Quarterly, 26(2), 94–

125.

[21] Jenkins, J., Cogo, A., & Dewey, M. (2011). Review of developments in research into English

as a lingua franca. Language Teaching, 44(3), 281-315.

[22] Keefer, P. (2007). Clientelism, credibility, and the policy choices of young

democracies. American Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 804-821.

[23] Kirk, D. (2005). Physical education, youth sport and lifelong participation: the importance of

early learning experiences. European Physical Education Review, 11(3), 239-255.

[24] Li, M., & Yang, R. (2014). Governance reforms in higher education: A study of China.

International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO. http://Unesdoc. Unesco.

Org/Images/0023/002318/231858e. Pdf

[25] Littlewood, W. (2007). Communicative and task-based language teaching in East Asian

classrooms. Language Teaching, 40(3), 243-249.

[26] Lotka, A. J. (1926). The frequency distribution of scientific productivity. Journal of the

Washington Academy of Sciences, 16(12), 317–323.

[27] Maringe, F., & Ojo, E. (Eds.). (2017). Sustainable Transformation in African Higher

Education: Research, Governance, Gender, Funding, Teaching and Learning in the African

University. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-902-7

[28] McBride, N., Farringdon, F., Midford, R., Meuleners, L., & Phillips, M. (2004). Harm

minimization in school drug education: final results of the School Health and Alcohol Harm

Reduction Project (SHAHRP). Addiction, 99(3), 278-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-

0443.2003.00620.x

[29] McCrone, T., Southcott, C., & George, N. (2011). Governance models in schools. National

Foundation for Educational Research.

[30] Mundy, K., & Verger, A. (2015). The World Bank and the global governance of education in

a changing world order. International Journal of Educational Development, 40, 9-18.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2014.11.021

[31] National Association of Independent Schools. (n.d.). New School Models.

https://www.nais.org/articles/pages/governance-models/



[32] Nguyen, T. H, (2016). The discentralization of general education. Monograph. The Vietnam

National Institute of Educational Sciences. 235, 9-44

[33] OECD. (2013). School Governance, Assessments and Accountability. PISA 2012 Results:

What Makes Schools Successful? Resources, Policies and Practices, 127-64.

[34] Opaneye, A. A. (1990). Maternal Formal Education and the Four-Child Policy in

Nigeria. Journal of the Royal Society of Health, 110(6), 220-221.

[35] Pham, D. N. T. (2017). Autonomy at Vietnamese general schools: Current status and to do

list. Journal of Educational Science, 145, 1-5

[36] Randhawa, K., Wilden, R., & Hohberger, J. (2016). A bibliometric review of open

innovation: Setting a research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(6),

750-772. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12312

[37] Rudduck, J., & McIntyre, D. (2007). Improving learning through consulting pupils.

Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203935323

[38] Sheng, Y. K. (2009). What is Good Governance? United Nations Economic and Social

Commission for Asia and the Pacific. https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/good-

governance.pdf

[39] Silins, E., Horwood, L. J., Patton, G. C., Fergusson, D. M., Olsson, C. A., Hutchinson, D. M.,

... & Coffey, C. (2014). Young adult sequelae of adolescent cannabis use: An Integrative

Analysis. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(4), 286-293. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-

0366(14)70307-4

[40] Soutar, G. N., & Turner, J. P. (2002). Students’ preferences for university: A conjoint

analysis. International Journal of Educational Management.

https://doi.org/10.1108/09513540210415523

[41] Story, M., Nanney, M. S., & Schwartz, M. B. (2009). Schools and obesity prevention: creating

school environments and policies to promote healthy eating and physical activity. The

Milbank Quarterly, 87(1), 71-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2009.00548.x

[42] Tella, A. (2007). The impact of motivation on student’s academic achievement and learning

outcomes in mathematics among secondary school students in Nigeria. Eurasia Journal of

Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 3(2), 149-156.

https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75390

[43] Twenge, J. M., Campbell, W. K., & Freeman, E. C. (2012). Generational differences in young

adults' life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966–2009. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 102 (5), 1045. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027408

[44] Wallin, J. A. (2005). Bibliometric methods: pitfalls and possibilities. Basic & Clinical

Pharmacology & Toxicology, 97(5), 261-275. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-

7843.2005.pto_139.x

[45] Watt, H. M. (2000). Measuring attitudinal change in mathematics and English over the 1st

year of junior high school: A multidimensional analysis. The Journal of Experimental

Education, 68(4), 331-361. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220970009600642

[46] Wilkinson, B. N. (2017). School Governance.

https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/library/stay_informed_overseas_policy_updates/sch

ool_governance.pdf

[47] World Bank. (2009). School good governance frequently asked questions. 2020, from

http://wk.ixueshu.com/file/5d1595cb6b92576a.html

[48] Youniss, J., McLellan, J. A., & Yates, M. (1997). What we know about engendering civic

identity. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(5), 620–631.