Završnik, J.. et al.: Children’s muscle composition: a bibliometrics study… Sport Science 7 (2014) 2: 7‐11 CHILDREN’S MUSCLE COMPOSITION: A BIBLIOMETRICS STUDY OF LITERATURE PRODUCTION Jernej Završnik1, Peter Kokol2, Rado Pišot3 and Helena Blažun4 1 Dr. Adolf Drolc Healthcare Center, Maribor, Slovenia 2 FERI, University of Maribor, Slovenia 3 Science and Research Centre of Koper, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia 4 Center for International Cooperation,University of Maribor, Slovenia Original scientific paper Abstract Objectives: Unhealthy lifestyles and exercise deficit disorders negatively impact societies in general, as well as individuals’ health, social, cultural, and physical status and in respect to this matter childhood is a very sensitive period. Summarizing the research focused in children’s physical exercise behaviour and consequently in their bodies growth, development, and muscle compositions may provide a snapshot of this field for the experts dealing with children. Methods: In relation to the muscle composition, sport is of significant importance and the aim of this paper is to quantitatively analyse the research literature from this area by using bibliometric analysis. Results: The production of papers was clearly increasing, however it was published by many different researchers coming from more than 170 institutions, 29 countries, and the research was published in 70 different journals. The research papers became shorter but on the other hand there were positive trends in the number of references, number of authors, number of institutions and countries per paper. Conclusions: This analysis revealed that research in the field of childrens’ muscle compositions related to sport is increasing; however it is highly dispersed and incoherent; the number of authors and references per paper are increasing, the average age of references is decreasing and the papers’ production is becoming more international, additionally bibliometrics proved to be a useful tool for those who need a quick overview of research and its utilisation, and as a starting point for integrative literature reviews and more exhaustive data, information, and knowledge seeking. Key words: muscle composition, children, sport, bibliometric Introduction Methods Unhealthy lifestyles and exercise deficit disorders negatively impact societies in general as well as individuals’ health, social, cultural, and physical status. In respect to this matter, childhood is a very sensitive period characterised by various dynamic changes in physiological and psychological development, as well as the establishment of healthy or unhealthy behaviour (Faigenbaum & Myer, 2012), which is further characterised by alarming proportions of obesity rates in the young (Harriger & Thompson, 2012). The research question posed in this paper is stated in the following form: What is the volume and scope of literary production in the area of children’s muscle compositions in relation to sports research and how are the production patterns expressed by various bibliometrics’ indicators. In order to answer the above question we had first to select an appropriate analysis framework, and we decided on bibliometric analysis, a known but rarely used method within the area of sports research. The basic unit of this kind of analysis is called the “information source”, which can usually be a journal or a conference paper but can also be a research report or, in general, any kind of published written text. The object of bibliometric analysis is to analyse those basic units within a given scientific context (field, discipline, or area) using mathematical and statistical methods, in the manner of determining various bibliometrics’ indicators such as the most prolific entities, features of the information sources, the rates of literary production over time, citation counts, or more general patterns such as the history and structure of a scientific field, the flow of information, patterns of collaboration amongst scientists, and the impact of journals (Pritchard, 1969; Garfield, 2006; de Bellis, 2009). In this paper we are mainly interested in the bibliometrics’ indicators enumerated above. Using the search string “muscle composition child* Children and adolescents should participate in moderate-to-vigorous, age appropriate, enjoyable, and varied physical activities at least one hour per day and strengthen their muscles and bones at least three times a week. Adequate exercise when young improves strength, cardio-respiratory fitness, and body composition (Pišot, et al., 2004; Landry & Driscol, 2012). From amongst them body composition in relation to sport is of significant importance (Lubans & Cliff, 2011), and therefore the aim of the present paper is to quantitatively analyse scientific papers productions within this area. In the Methods section we briefly introduce bibliometric analysis and its usage during our methodological approach. In the Results section we present a detailed overview of the results and conclude the paper with the more important observations and conclusions. 7 Završnik, J.. et al.: Children’s muscle composition: a bibliometrics study… Sport Science 7 (2014) 2: 7‐11 sport” we identified 105 valid papers from the SCOPUS database and for each of these papers, using a text parser developed by one of the authors, we extracted data such as: the author’s institution and affiliation nationality; the year of publication; number of citations; the total number of references; the average age of the references; and the number of pages. These data were then analysed in SPSS using both descriptive and correspondence analyses. The most prolific countries, journals, institutions, authors, source titles, and most cited papers were identified by built in SCOPUS analysis tools. Linear regression was applied for the manner of analysing the influence of bibliometrics’ indicators on the number of citations per paper. The automatic option in the SPSS was used (standard model and forward step method). Figure 3 Descriptive features of the papers’ references (Number of references, citations, and average age of references) Figure 2 Descriptive features of papers (Number of authors, papers, countries, and institutions per paper) The overall trend of the number of published papers was positive and is increasing following a second degree polynomial. Figure 2 presents the descriptive features of published papers and their changes over time. It is interesting to note that the papers became shorter (from 10 to 8 pages), whilst the other papers’ descriptive characteristics exhibited a positive trend, for example the number of authors increased from 2 to 5. Papers also became more inter-institutional (early papers were written by authors from one institution, recent papers have been, on average, written by authors from two institutions. Additional analysis showed that papers also become more international, meaning that some recent papers have been written by authors coming from two or three different countries. The black lines represent the trends regarding the descriptive features of the papers. Figure 3 presents another set of basic paper descriptive features. We can see that the number of references per paper increased over time, their average age decreased slightly and the trend regarding the number of citations had a parabolic shape with the highest peak value around the year 1993 when, in average, the papers were citied more than 60 times. The black lines represent trends of each descriptive feature of the papers’ references. Tables 1 and 2 present the most prolific institutions and countries. The most prolific institutions have been located mainly in Europe and the United States and the most prolific countries have come from three continents (USA, Europe, and Australasia) with the majority of the papers published in the United States. The most prolific source titles are “Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise” (17 papers), “Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness” and “Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness” (5 papers), “Clinics in Sports Medicine” and ”Sports Medicine” (4 papers), and ”International Journal of Sports Medicine” and ”International Journal of Obesity” (3 papers). From Figure 1, we can see that the first papers within the area of interest were published in 1973, and the paper production remained quite small (zero or one paper), except in the years 1984 and 1986 until the year 1997, when the number of papers started to increase. Altogether 105 papers were published under 70 different source titles, expressing the greater dispersion of literary production in the field of study. The most cited papers are presented in Table 3. We can observe that papers have been highly cited, indeed one has almost 300 citations. Results Figure 1 Number of papers per publishing year 8 Završnik, J.. et al.: Children’s muscle composition: a bibliometrics study… Sport Science 7 (2014) 2: 7‐11 Table 1 Most prolific institutions Institution Table 2 Most prolific countries Country Number of papers Universidad de Las Palmas de G.Canaria Spain 6 University of Exeter UK 5 Universidad de Zaragoza Spain 4 The College of New Jersey USA 3 Universite Blaise Pascal France 2 Malmo University Hospital Sweden 2 Christian-Albrechts-Universit Kiel Germany 2 Aristoteleion Panepistimion Thessalonikis Greece 2 University of Otago N.Zealand 2 Deakin University Australia 2 University of Nebraska at Omaha USA 2 Liverpool John Moores University UK 2 Lunds Universitet Sweden 2 Cincinnati Children's Hospital Med Center USA Kobenhavns Universitet Denmark 2 McMaster University Canada 2 Number of SciMago Percentage papers country rank USA 38 36,19% 1 Spain 10 9,52% 9 Australia 8 7,62% 10 U.Kingdom 8 7,62% 2 Canada 7 6,67% 8 Germany 6 5,71% 3 Denmark 4 3,81% 22 France 4 3,81% 5 Italy 4 3,81% 6 N.Zealand 4 3,81% 29 Sweden 4 3,81% 16 92,38% Country The most cited papers were, on average, older (between 1986 and 2004). Table 3 Most cited papers Authors Title Year Lohman T.G. Applicability of body composition techniques and constants for children and youths Muscle metabolism and enzyme activities after training in boys 11-13 years old Bone mass in prepubertal children: Gender differences and the role of physical activity and sunlight exposure Physical fitness and physical activity during adolescence as predictors of cardiovascular disease risk in young adulthood. Danish Youth and Sports study. An eight-year follow-up study The effects of hydraulic resistance strength training in pre-pubertal males 1986 N of citations 269 1973 96 1998 95 2002 93 1986 91 Strength training for children and adolescents Regular participation in sports is associated with enhanced physical fitness and lower fat mass in prepubertal boys 2000 2004 82 74 Resistance training during preadolescence: Issues and controversies High femoral bone mineral density accretion in prepubertal soccer players 1993 2004 66 63 Applied physiology of swimming 1986 61 Eriksson B.O., Gollnick P.D., Saltin B. Jones G., Dwyer T. Hasselstrom H., Hansen S.E., Froberg K., Andersen L.B. Weltman A., Janney C., Rians C.B., Strand K., Berg B., Tippitt S., Wise J., Cahill B.R., Katch F.I. Faigenbaum A.D Ara I., Vicente-Rodriguez G., Jimenez-Ramirez J., Dorado C., Serrano-Sanchez J.A., Calbet J.A.L. Blimkie C.J.R. Vicente-Rodriguez G., Ara I., Perez-Gomez J., Serrano-Sanchez J.A., Dorado C., Calbet J.A.L. Lavoie J.M., Montpetit R.R. It is interesting to note that three from ten of the most cited papers are from the year 1986. (there were 6 papers published in 1986, meaning that half of them received high citation rates) The associations between words and publishing years generated by the correspondence analysis are shown in Figure 4. We could identify some interesting word-associations: • Words “exercise” and “power” were found together, probably indicating the importance of exercise for gaining power and managing weight in children. • Words mass, muscle, sport, results, fat, composition, body, age were clustered together into complex associative patterns with no clear structures. • Words training, fitness, growth and performance were grouped together indicating the importance of training for performance and fitness, and also growth. It was also interesting that the words “boys” and “girls” were found close together meaning that both of them had similar associations with other words in the biplot. This observation might indicate that there had been no large differences between the sexes within the contexts of the research on children’s muscle compositions, in relation to the sports found in the papers analysed during our study. There were no clear clustering’s of years, and no patterns that could enable us to name both dimensions. The world “cloud” as derived from the paper abstracts presented in Figure 5 shows that the more used words were training, physical, body, children, strength, mass, and muscle. The word frequency analysis showed that in overall there were no obvious patterns regarding the word-frequency dynamics but we could observe some word-frequency peaks, such as “strength” and “body” in 1985, “children” in 2000, “mass” and “body” in 2004,”activity” and “physical” in 2007, and “body”, “physical”, “strength” and “children” in 2011. 9 Završnik, J.. et al.: Children’s muscle composition: a bibliometrics study… Sport Science 7 (2014) 2: 7‐11 Figure 4 Biplot of the associations between more frequent words and publishing years Figure 5 Word cloud derived from the papers’ abstracts Using the linear regression model of the relationship between the number of citations and the paper’s basic bibliometrics’ characteristics we found that the number of pages (Informative importance = 0.4378), publishing year (Informative importance = 0.3013), and number of authors (Informative importance = 0.1933) had the greatest influence covering 93% of overall Informative importance, however the low model prediction power (R = 0,2, information criterion=635) had to be taken into account. All the above presented results appertained to the stated research question. Discussion The bibliometrics analysis revealed some interesting characteristics of the literature production on the field of children’s muscle compositions in relation to sport. The production of papers was clearly increased but it was much dispersed. 10 In particular, there were many researchers who came from more than 170 institutions, 29 countries, and had written numerous different scientific articles published in more than 70 journals; however, it seemed that the observed research field was slightly incoherent. Additionally, there was not any indication of constant research interest that would enable more concrete professional and scientific development within this particular field. The increasing number of authors, institutions, and countries contributing to research papers showed that the research was complex and required multidisciplinary and inter-sectional approaches, as well as teamwork. According to the bibliometric analysis, the research papers became shorter but on the other hand there were positive trends in the number of papers and the number of authors per paper, meaning that there was growing research interest in the field of childrens’ muscle compositions in relation to sport. Additionally, the researchers were also increasingly interconnected at the national as well international levels. Due to this fact it is quite logical that the number of references per paper increased; however the more cited were slightly older papers. This analysis showed that the mostly cited article was published in the year 1986 (cited 269 times) which may be due to the fact the paper is almost 20 years old. It was clear from the methodological point of view and it presented significant results as they were published in highly recognised journal etc.The chaotic dynamics patterns of word-frequencies observed during frequency and correspondence analysis indicated that the research interest was insufficiently focused as the research topics were constantly changing. The analysis showed that during the earlier research stage there had been more emphasis on topics “strength and body”, then the focus changed to “mass and body”, and “physical activity”, and finally to “body and strength” in combination with “physical and children”. The different research emphases were more or less logical due to the reduction in physical activity, irregular eating habits of the children, and consequently the increasing number of obese children (Faigenbaum & Myer, 2012; Harriger & Thompson, 2012). Conclusion The presented study revealed that bibliometric analysis is a very useful tool for the quantitative analysis of papers’ production and that the results presented in this paper could be an excellent starting-point for integrative literature reviews and more exhaustive data, information and knowledge-seeking within the field of children’s muscle compositions in relation to sport. Additionally, the research focus, especially on topics within the field of children’s muscle compositions in relation to sport was constantly changing and this fact might indicate that more focused and coherent research studies are needed in near future. Završnik, J.. et al.: Children’s muscle composition: a bibliometrics study… Sport Science 7 (2014) 2: 7‐11 References de Bellis, N. (2009). Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Faigenbaum, A.D., & Myer, G.D. (2012). Exercise Deficit Disorder in Youth: Play Now or Pay Later. American College of Sports Medicine, 11(4), 196-200. Garfield, E. (2006). The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor. Journal of American Medical Association, 295(1), 90-93. Harriger, J.A., & Thompson, K.J. (2012). Psychological consequences of obesity: Weight bias and body image in overweight and obese youth. International Review of Psychiatry, 24(3), 247-253. Landry, B., & Driscol, S. (2012). Phisycal activity in children and adolescent. PM and R, 4(11), 826- 832. Lubans, D., & Cliff, D. (2011). Muscular fitness, body composition and physical self-perception in adolescents. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 14(3), 216-221. Pišot, R., Kerševan, K., Djordjević, S., Medved, V., Završnik, J., & Šimunič, B. (2004). Differentiation of skeletal muscles in 9-year-old children. Kinesiology, 36(1), 90-97. Pritchard, A. (1969). Statistical bibliography; an interim bibliography. SABS, 5, 184-244. MIŠIĆNI SASTAV KOD DJECE: BIBLIOMETRIJSKO ISTRAŽIVANJE PRODUKCIJE U LITERATURI Sažetak Ciljevi: nezdravi stil života i poremećaji kaop i deficit vježbe negativno utjeće na društvo u cjelini, kao i na zdravlje pojedinca, socijalno, kulturno i fizičko stanje te je u odnosu na ovo pitanje djetinjstvo vrlo osjetljivo razdoblje. Rezimirajući istraživanja usmjerena u ponašanju prema dječjem tjelesnom vježbanju, a time i na njihov rast tijela, razvoj i kompoziciju mišića, moguće je dati pregled tog područja za stručnjake koji se bave djecom. Metode: U odnosu na sastav mišića, sport je od velikog značaja i cilj ovog rada je kvantitativno analizirati znanstvenu literaturu iz tog područja pomoću bibliometrijske analize. Rezultati: produkcija članaka očito je u porastu, i objavljivanje je od strane mnogih različitih istraživača koji dolaze iz više od 170 ustanova, 29 zemalja, a istraživanja su objavljena u 70 različitih časopisa. Znanstveni radovi postaju kraći, ali s druge strane postoje pozitivni trendovi u broju referenci, broju autora, broju institucija i država po članku. Zaključak: Ova analiza pokazala je da su istraživanja na području sastava dječjih mišića vezana uz sport u porastu. No istraživanja su jako je raspršena i ponekad nesuvisla. Broj autora i reference po članku su u porastu, prosječna starost referenci se smanjuje i produkcija radovi postaje međunarodna. Kako se vidi, postoje alati za one koji trebaju brzi pregled istraživanja i njegovog korištenja, te kao polazište za integrativna mišljenja iz stručne literature, iscrpnije podataka, informacije i traženje znanja. Ključne riječi: sastav mišića, djeca, sport, bibliometrija Received: April 23, 2014 Accepted: December 20, 2014 Correspondence to: Peter Kokol Faculty FERI University of Maribor 2000 Maribor, Smetanova ulica 17, Slovenia Phone: +386 2 220 7457 E-mail: [email protected] 11
© Copyright 2024