Thesis
Thesis
Comparative Study
Department of English
Submitted By:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0755-7990 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2966-6602
Supervisor:
Dr. Hadj BOURI. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8731-419X
Members of the jury:
2020-2021
Dedication
Every challenging work needs efforts as well as guidance and support from those who
are close to our heart
To Allah my Creator
To my beloved parents, the reason of what I became today, thanks for your endless
love, support, prayers and encouragement
To my amazing dad “Said” who thought me to believe in myself and supported me. I
am so grateful to be your daughter.
To my lovely mom “Djebina”, the heart of the family, who believed in me and have
always been my anchor.
To my partner Samia who have been patient, caring and hard worker
To the adorable Rym KHOUACHI who have been always there to motivate me
To my Best friends Ahlem, Djihen, Hanen, Meryem, Narimen, Randa and Rania,
thank you for the moral support and tolerance
To Allah my Creator
A special feeling of gratitude to my loving parents, "may God bless them "whose words
of encouragement and push for tenacity ring in my ears.
My nephews, birds of Heaven "King Haroun, Abd- Errahim, Akram, Zina, Seif -Eddin,
Louay, Mouataz, Lokman, Baby Nour, Jouri, my beloved Farah "….you are house
candles.
Brothers in law.
Daughters in law.
“Souhila”
To me “Samia OUADFEL”
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we would like praise and thank God, the almighty, who
supervisor Dr. Hadj BOURI for his enthusiasm for the project, his support,
encouragement, patience, and whose insight and knowledge into the subject matter
Special thanks are extended to Mr. Djamel MEZRAG for his constructive
comments and precious time in giving the guidance and suggestions for the
We would also thank Mr. Salah AID and Dr. Haroun MELGANI for
Last but not least, thanks are due to Dr. IDRISSI Samir may God reward
you with all the best for the kindness of your heart and constant encouragement, and
Dr. ADAD Radhia you were the best mate. Thank you for the support.
Abstract
As a result of the technological development over the years, it has become possible for
researchers to publish all kinds of information via the internet. Bibliometric methods
now form an intrinsic element of the research assessment process, notably in the
the articles about Algerian EFL scientific articles in Scopus and ASJP databases. The
research published on the topic of EFL, and to make a comparison between the two
databases using VOSviewer tool. The current study, thus, aims to report a bibliometric
analysis of 23 articles on EFL obtained from Scopus and ASJP databases. To carry out
the analysis, a qualitative method was performed for the most used keywords, the most
cited countries, the collaborative authors, and the most cited references. According to
the results, Scopus revealed (Algeria, E-learning) as the most used keywords; (Algeria)
(Brantmeier. C; Does Gender Make A Difference?) as the most cited reference. Then,
ASJP revealed (Algerian, EFL) as most used keywords; (Algeria) as the most cited
Using Computers) as the most cited reference. It is assumed that the results obtained
would provide the researchers with a general framework in this field. Suggestions for
GS Google Scholar
MA Microsoft Academic
to EFL Algerian.............................................................................................................. 55
Algerian.......................................................................................................................... 60
Algerian.......................................................................................................................... 63
EFL Algerian.................................................................................................................. 65
to EFL Algerian.............................................................................................................. 67
Algerian.......................................................................................................................... 70
Algerian.......................................................................................................................... 73
List of Tables
GENERAL INTRODUCTION....................................................................................21
3. Research Aims........................................................................................................... 22
4. Research Questions....................................................................................................22
5. Research Hypothesis..................................................................................................23
6. Research Methodology.............................................................................................. 23
6.1. Corpus.............................................................................................................. 23
6.2. Method..............................................................................................................23
Introduction.....................................................................................................................26
1. Bibliometrics..............................................................................................................26
3.3. Elsevier................................................................................................................... 44
3.3.1. ScienceDirect............................................................................................45
3.3.2. Scopus.......................................................................................................45
3.3.3. Mendeley.................................................................................................. 46
3.3.4. SSRN........................................................................................................ 46
3.4. Web of Science (WoS).......................................................................................... 46
3.7. Dimensions............................................................................................................ 48
Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 48
Introduction.....................................................................................................................49
1. Research Methodology.............................................................................................. 49
2. Research results........................................................................................................ 52
2.1. Scopus.....................................................................................................................52
2.1.1.1. Authors............................................................................................. 53
2.1.1.2. Countries.......................................................................................... 55
2.2. ASJP...................................................................................................................... 63
Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 73
GENERAL CONCLUSION........................................................................................ 74
2. Pedagogical Implications...........................................................................................75
References.......................................................................................................................79
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Academic writing is a formal piece of paper written to report a research that has
been conducted. Today, most scientific articles around the world are published in
English; however, this can be a challenge especially for non-native English writers. In
Algeria, due to the rapid diffusion of English, many scholars attempt to write scientific
researches in that language. In fact, out of 1,410 national projects published in Algeria
between, 1998 and 2003, 681 (48%) were published in English, followed by French
with 528 (37%) (Slougui, 2009). It is worth noting, that these numbers show that
Algerian scientists use the English language to publish the most professionally.
the research field, this is done to allow researchers to make rapid and more
analyse the productivity of journals, authors etc. It was first coined by Pritchard (1969),
he defined the term as the statistical and mathematical analysis of books, articles,
journals, and authors. It was mainly related to natural science; thus, today it is used for
other disciplines such as language. Several databases such as Scopus, WoS, GS, and
Various studies have assessed the overlap across databases and the influence of
using different data sources for specific research disciplines on bibliometric indicators.
For instance: Mongeon (2016), Bosman et al. (2006), Martín-martín et al. (2018), Jacso
(2005), and Norris and Oppenheim (2007) compared the general characteristics and
Up to now, rarely studies has been conducted either about the Algerian
scientists writing about EFL in their articles or about the ASJP platform. This informs
the problem statement and the motivations for conducting this study.
3. Research Aims
Scientific articles published in Scopus and ASJP. The primary aim of this paper is to
1. To analyse the Algerian EFL scientific articles published in both Scopus and ASJP
2. To explore the validity of Scopus and ASJP for Algerian EFL scientists
4. Research Questions
Which keywords do authors on EFL area of research use the most frequently?
To what extent are Scopus and ASJP valid for Algerian EFL scientists?
5. Research Hypothesis
6. Research Methodology
6.1. Corpus
Algerian scientific platform are the target sample of this study. The corpus of this
6.2. Method
the main procedure via the use of the bibliometric analysis method. The scientific
articles published by Algerian EFL scientists were exported from Scopus and ASJP
database. The focus was to identify the productivity of Algerian researchers in each
The articles chosen for the study contained journal, title, author, keywords, and counts
(version 1.6.16) was used to analyse the Co-authorship, Co-occurrence, and Co-citation.
It was developed by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden
Following the general introductory section, the study consists of two themed
chapters.
Chapter one, the theoretical framework, first gives a brief overview of the
history and most important aspects of bibliometric method. This Followed by a detailed
overview of the key notions, concepts of scientific articles, and EFL Algerian scientists.
In addition to that, a section to mention and define the most popular scientific platforms.
Chapter two, The fieldwork, accounts for the practical procedure of data
results. Finally, the study closes with the summary, limitations, and recommendations
Introduction
In prefacing this chapter, it is important to note that the main aim covered is to
Scopus and ASJP. In doing so, the chapter is divided into three distinct sections. The
first section will examine the history, the definitions, and the Laws of bibliometric
analysis. In the section that follows, it will deal with EFL Algerian scientific articles.
The last section will present different platforms including Scopus and ASJP. To close
1. Bibliometrics
The study of scientific literature has a rich history that goes back to the early
decades of the past century. However, it was until 1969 that Pritchard first coined the
Wilson (1995) contends that the word "bibliometrics" has a French precedent derived
from the term "bibliometrie". To back up Wilson's claim, it was discovered that a
French scholar, (Otlet, 1934), had previously used the expression "bibliometrie" for
particular care to the development of the laws and procedures in bibliometrics (Hertzel,
1987).
literature' of comparative anatomy from 1543 to 1860, which counted the number of
titles, both books and journal articles, and grouped them by country of origin within
periods. The second study by Hulme in 1923 entitled "Statistical Analysis of the history
of science" was mainly about the initial entries of the "English International Catalogue
of Scientific Literature" Shanmugam (2018). Gross & Gross (1927) made another
pioneering study; they used the citation analysis method to articles in the journal of the
American Chemical Society. This work has had significant consequences, as citation
Bradford (1934) added a key study on the distribution and Lubrication research. He
found the theoretical foundation of the Bibliometrics study known as the Bradford’s
Law of Scattering.
Many scholars have defined the term bibliometrics in various ways. Brookes
Studies only since its work is yet to end as libraries continue to acclimatize to the
outside experts, statisticians and others, in developing and refining its techniques”.
“research technique in library and information science that applies quantitative analysis
and statistics to describe publication patterns in any field of knowledge” (Agyeman &
Bilson, 2015)
The term Bibliometrics can be divided into two sub-terms: Biblio; which means
information, and Metrics, which stands for measuring; means explaining the world
Potter, Sengupta, Pritchard, and others, described the term bibliometric differently.
Raisig (1962) defines bibliometrics as the assembling and interpretation of
determine national and universal research, use of books and journals and to ascertain in
communication.
can conclude that it is an important tool to make a descriptive study. Bibliometrics can
documents or literature. Descriptive studies brings out Time and frequency of studies,
Behavioural studies are those that investigate the relationship between several
and Zipf’s Law. These laws can be found in Table 1 where it is evident that
bibliometric analysis has axes regarded as experimental predictors (Waltman & Noyons,
2018).
Table 1- 1
Fundamental Laws of Bibliometric Analysis
Note. Brika, S. K. M., Algamdi, A., Chergui, K., Musa, A. A., & Zouaghi, R. (2021,
May)
coined one of the fundamental laws of bibliometrics (Andres, 2009). He noticed that in
a given field of research many authors publish only one study, while a small group of
basis of Lotka’s law, also known as the inverse square law on author productivity.
According to this inverse square law, the number of authors who contributed to a
particular study is used to estimate how many authors would have published x studies.
Samuel Clement Bradford 1934 was the founder of Bradford’s law, one of the
important laws of bibliometrics (Andres, 2009, p. 31). His work in geophysics was
established between 1931 and 1933, during which time he collected all the articles he
could find related to the topic. As he analysed the journals where the articles were
articles published in a subject field and the number of journals in which they appear.
This means that a small number of journals account for a sizable portion of overall
publications in a given subject area, while a growing number of journals publish fewer
papers in that area. In brief, Bradford’s law ranks journals according to their
productivity are ranked and divided into groups or categories, depending on the number
of articles they account for. These groups are termed Bradford zones (Figure 1).
Figure 1- 1
Bradford zones
Core
Zone 1
Zone 2
From figure 1, the core is where you find the most productive journal. Each
time we move from one zone to the next one the productivity decreases and so on.
social science fields such as linguistics. Zipf asserted that if one takes the words making
up an extended body of text and ranks them by frequency of occurrence, then the rank
(Andres, 2009). This law subsequently verified by Hanley (1937), who analysed the
scatter, and Zipf's law of recorded discourse. (Chen & Leimkuhler, 1986) illustrated
that Lotka’s, Bradford’s and Zipf’s laws have something in common, and even claimed
that they were mathematically equivalent. Based on their saying, we can notice that all
three laws relate, via a simple function, two variables. They found out two main
characteristics shared by the three laws. The first is that all three study the particular
arrangement of two groups: the observation and the class (Hubert, 1981). The variables
involved will be the difference between these laws (Table 2) .The second common
characteristic they all involve a relatively simple model of the particular arrangement of
Table 1- 2
Variables Involved in Lotka’s, Bradford’s and Zipf’s Laws
Observation Class
From Table 2, it is clear that the three laws drop into two groups (Observation
al., 2003), it has become an essential tool for assessing and analysing the productivity
and impact of academics and technology. Knowing the productivity and efficiency of
Scientific articles are the ‘warehouse’ for scientific investigation and the
processes employed for making research. They are written in order to uncover some
truth and to give scientists a way to discuss the outcomes of their research. The media
allowing the author to express his discoveries and insights in an ordered, logical way.
There are two distinct types of scientific papers Pardede (2012). Complete
research papers which are based on actual and relevant studies, and concept papers that
do not present new information from fresh research but instead discuss and compare
thinking in the field of interest. This study focuses on complete research publications,
particularly in English.
AIMReDCaR (the Abstract, the Introduction, the Materials and Methods, the
Results the Discussion, the Conclusion, and the References) is a famous format of
scientific papers. Pardede (2012, p. 2) claims that the application of the format
AIMReDCaR rigidizes the structure of scientific papers and there are two explanations.
to read the material at various levels. In brief, the scientific format ensures that a reader
is aware of what to expect and what to find in particular categories of content. Cargill
and O’Connor (2009, p. 10) showed the AIMRaD (Abstract, Introduction, Results,
Discussion, Methods and materials) structure and what it can tell us about English-
language research articles in figure 2. The diagram shows something crucial about
scientific publications by their width and form rather than depth. It shows the
component and importance of each section in the AIMRaD structure. Cargill and
O’Connor first started by explaining the Results where every part of the article must be
related to. Moving to the Introduction which starts with a general idea that must be
presented in an attractive way, and ends with stating the aim of the work. After the
introduction and before it ends, the writer have to mention the background and the
previous studies related to his study and relevant to the problem. Following this section,
the Method is needed to clarify how the results are obtained. Finally, the Discussion of
the results.
Figure 2- 1
AIMRaD: the hourglass ‘‘shape’’ of a generic scientific research
activity.
From what was mentioned above, the seven parts and their main elements of the
the main ideas and results of a paper. The ANSI defines it as “an abbreviated, accurate
publication with it” (ANSI 1979, p 1). Most articles begin with an abstract that is
limited to 150 to 250 words. It provides maximum details with minimum words. A
good abstract provides a brief description of the main ideas and findings of the paper. It
also gives examples of the various steps involved in the paper's development. (Peat,
To ensure that the abstract contains all of the necessary information, many
journals now require that you structure your abstract formally. The BMJ
journals, particularly journals that publish both clinical and laboratory studies,
limit their abstract headings to the standard aims, methods, results, and
conclusions. Even if the journal does not specify any subheadings, write your
Peat (2002) claims that many journals recommend writing the abstract in a formal way.
The formal way of an abstract means to mention the most important parts (Design,
Aims, Method, Results).This to guarantee that your abstract is well done and comprises
all the information. Moreover, he advice to write with the subheadings (Objective,
At the end of an abstract, many journals ask the author to provide a short phrase
or three to five key words for indexing. The keywords help the readers to decide
background information, which a reader must grasp in the remaining papers of the
author. The length of an introduction depends on the publication and the topic,
normally it takes between 300 and 500 words, but it should be identical in structure and
substance. Some journals write the introduction as a continuous essay, while others
When writing the introduction, the author should remember that the reader of
the scientific work is supposed to know the subject in principle. The presentation must
thus eliminate simple facts and content material that would only be known by a
professional.
paragraphs. First, the problem and its background in one paragraph. Second, in two or
three paragraphs, it discusses the problem, the reasons, and the method applied. Next,
stating the hypothesis in a clear way. Then, a brief summary of the previous studies. At
have different sections in the middle structure. Some journals label this section
research, label it Methods & Materials. This section, which explains the research
procedures employed, is highly necessary for enthusiastic readers for it allows them to
repeat the author’s work and reproduce his or her findings. Achieving this, the author
must explain exactly what he or she did: what experiments were carried out and how
they were conducted, what equipment and materials were used and how they were used,
p 63) claims that the results section is the meat of a paper and the most essential part of
a study. Sometimes the results and discussion are joined into one section; if not it is of
the sake of clarity. This is beneficial especially when preliminary data must be
results but in the context of knowledge development, influence on education, and future
research. In other words, the discussion takes the results provided in the results section
and analyses them, assesses their importance, and analyses their consequences. This is
maybe the most complicated one to write and shows how well the author knows the
outcomes among the entire sections of the article. Some publications restrict the portion
(Figure 3).
Figure 2- 2
Template for the discussion
Paragraph 1
What did this study show? Address the aims stated in the introduction
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 3 to n-1
Discuss how the results support the current literature or refute current
Final paragraph
Future directions
The template describes the procedure and the content of each paragraph section.
The first paragraph introduces the aim of the research that was mentioned at the level of
the introduction. The second paragraph shows the both positive and negative sides of
the method. The third paragraph deals with the results. The last paragraph discusses the
(The models provided for the discussion section remain a debate, because each
writers provide a summary for the whole work. Lebrun (2007) highlights that a
Conclusion section is a place where the author restates the contribution of the research,
with a particular emphasis on what it allows others to do; and suggest further research
the activity of other scientific research projects. Whenever an author quotes from
external resources, he or she must use systematic references to identify his or her
sources. The relevance of references to a publication is not only to recognize the ideas
and labor of other scientists but also to offer readers access to these sources. The two
basic elements of a referencing system are the “text citation” and the “reference list.”
Some journals use the American Psychological Association (APA) style; others,
Research is a process of gathering data that seek to increase and to create new
knowledge via scientific research. While writing a scientific paper, researcher may find
himself or herself facing problems such as plagiarism, we call this “Ethical problem”.
Ethical problems appear whenever there is an interference between the written paper of
the author and the actual research they have done. (Uhm, 2016) wrote, “Research ethics
are mainly of two fields; research integrity and publication ethics. Research misconduct
can occur in both areas. Examples of the research integrity violations are falsification,
fabrication, and plagiarism; and those of the publication ethics violations are duplicate
The research consists of four major phases. In each phase, unethical approaches
reporting (plagiarism), and reviewing (violation of the authorship rule) (Roy & Rana,
2020, p. 25).
To explain what Roy and Rana claimed, during the proposing of the research, there is a
change in the results to match the study of the researcher. In the performing, fabrication
is used for the destruction of data. When reporting the research, plagiarism appears to
copy others words. Plagiarism is the act of copying another person's intellectual
property without credit or attribution. It can also be considered unethical and has
research, the unethical approach is known as a violation of the authorship rule. These
The use of information technology and computers in this period has given rise
Researchers share their research knowledge and discoveries with readers and followers
by publishing their research knowledge and discoveries online in the form of papers.
publishing. It covers the publication of e-books and electronic papers that are accessible
Publication ethics provides us with specific criteria for submitting our work. It
informs about the types of content that are and are not suitable for publication. It
accurate, sufficient, and relevant knowledge. These are standards that govern the
among other things. It fosters appropriate relationships with those who participate in
Before submitting any work authors must check the authenticity of their work to
make sure its ethic. According to the Ethics Toolkit from Elsevier (2017), there are five
main reasons for publishing ethically; it ensures scientific progress, protects life and
planet, promotes ethical behaviour, gives a good reputation for the author and it is the
Choosing the accurate journal for a scientific paper will affect its chances of
being published easily and quickly. The appropriate journal is the one that maximizes
the speed and convenience of publishing, the professional reputation the scientists get,
and the accessibility for the readers. These aspects are intertwined, and it might be
One of the primary concerns is whether the journal peer reviews the articles that
publications to publish.
According to Cargill and O’Connor (2009, pp. 69-71) when picking a journal
for work, we have certain problems to consider; The scope and aims of the journal,
The audience for the journal, Journal impact, Using indices of journal quality, Time to
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) was defined by Iwai (2011) that EFL
refers to those who learn English in non-English speaking countries. It is used by non-
article as an EFL writer may be hard for some Algerian writers, however; we cannot
deny the number of their published articles in national and international databases. Still,
the number of publications does not always refer to the productivity of writers.
international scientific researchers tend to release their work online. Different platforms
give a chance for researchers to publish their outcomes under certain conditions and
sequence that allows simple access, so that the information it contains can be: updated,
used at any time by any computer program which it is connected to and operated at all
times according to different criteria” (Martíuez, 1995). He explains the importance and
the role of database as a source of updated information that can be used at any time.
developed and managed in 2009 by CERIST. ASJP, Journal of studies and research, a
body of experienced and competent researchers from inside and outside the country and
was published by the University of Xian Ashour in Algiers, and the journal is
research with expertise in the field of Humanities, Social Sciences, Islamic sciences,
literature, languages, arts and civilization, Law, Political Sciences, Economic Sciences,
Education Sciences, Psychology, and related sciences. The journal aims to publish the
disseminate knowledge and access to new and serious research and link communication
between researchers. ASJP also aims to provide access to research and studies to the
French and English that have not Information, quoting ideas, attributing them to their
owners, and documenting them by scientific methods. ASJP contains 148.423 articles
covering all aspects of education and scientific research. (Waltman & Van Eck, 2013)
In terms of access, this documentation is classified into two categories: the first
permanent researchers within university campuses and research centres. The other
category, on the other hand, concerns the research aspect. It is dedicated to teacher-
3.3. Elsevier
and medical content. The world leader in information and analytics, Elsevier, assists
partners for 140 years, building upon our origins in publishing. Elsevier provides
knowledge and valuable analysis to help our users achieve breakthroughs and advance
Elsevier support research journey and enable research via its cross-discipline
3.3.1. ScienceDirect
journals and more than 42,000 eBooks and attracts more than 18 million people every
month, and is the world's largest platform for peer-reviewed primary scientific and
medical research. Elsevier has continued to invest in ScienceDirect and has integrated
new remote access ways that enable researchers to use its tools conveniently, securely
and securely from home ensuring that their privacy and data are safeguarded.
3.3.2. Scopus
launched in 2004 by Elsevier. It provides access to databases and citation data from all
major disciplines published from 1966 onward (the access is under subscription). It
covers three types of sources: book series, journals and trade journals.
Scopus includes a number of around 75 million records across 25.000 journals,
more than 24,600 active titles and more than 194,000 books. The temporal coverage is
3.3.3. Mendeley
organizes, writes, and collaborates with more than 15 million people worldwide, from
3.3.4. SSRN
their findings before being published in academic publications. It serves as the location
of specialized research networks in the social, life, and physical fields for the quick
dissemination of findings around the world. At present, SSRN has more than 2.6
million visits every month, with more than 950,000 papers by over 500,000 writers. It
has retrieved 22,9 million references from its whole text collection on early-stage
worldwide citation database. It is the most powerful research engine, offering best-in-
class publication and citation data to the library for confident discovery, access, and
assessment. The access is under subscription. WoS is guided by the legacy of Dr.
Eugene Garfield, founder of the world's first citation index. The Institute for Scientific
Information (ISI) was the first producer, then after, its intellectual property transferred
abstracts, proceedings (journals and book-based), and technical papers. WoS provides a
standardized search language, navigation environment, and data structure that enables
research findings and assess impact using the index's inherent citation links.
The WoS includes journal articles from all major disciplines (science, social
science, arts and humanities). The total number of records is beyond 90 million
(journals, books, and proceedings), 48 million patent families (more than 97 million
patents), and 10 million data sets. Its temporal coverage is from 1900 to the present.
Google Scholar is the newest entry into the scientific database community. It a
freely available database, released in Beta in 2004 by Alex Verstak and Anurag
Acharya. By that time, according to Anurag Acharya of Google, the content included
(Acharya, 2004); it has since expanded the content – patents in November 2006 and
United States legal information in November 2009. GS indexes the full text or metadata
of the scientific literature from the most peer-reviewed online academic journals, books,
conference papers, theses, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, court opinions and
patents. Users may use GS to look for digital or physical versions of articles, whether
online or in libraries.
GS is most valuable, however; it has been criticized for not ban the predatory
journals), and that it cannot be used to analyse the publishing performance and impact
of researchers
3.7. Dimensions
supported by Digital Science & Research Solutions Inc. and has been considered as an
alternative to WoS and Scopus (Martín-martín et al., 2018). According to its available
information, information, its goal is to provide “a more open and comprehensive data
(articles, conference papers, books, etc.), but also offer links to grants, patents, clinical
The number of records that contain Dimensions is higher than 106 million
output: the cited and citing publications; related grants; supporting funders; article
metrics; the related patents, clinical trials, policy documents, and datasets; and much
more.
Conclusion
with various databases that can help researchers to publish their writings.
Introduction
The current study sets sights on multiple purposes. First, it aims to conduct a
in Scopus and ASJP databases. Second, a comparative study is used to depict the
see the extent to which they are interrelated in some established rules. The focus is
placed on the most used keywords (co-occurrence), the most collaborative authors, and
chapter also introduces the research procedures implemented in the selection of this
study, tools, data collection, data analysis, as well as the interpretation and discussion
of the results.
1. Research Methodology
To achieve the objectives of this study, two databases were selected to collect
the articles. The participants are Algerian EFL Scientists. This study uses a systematic
and structured method through a bibliometric analysis which is based on four stages:
conducting bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer application (Julia et al., 2020)
To this end, analyses were provided of 23 articles deemed suitable for the
analysis of the articles collected from the databases (SCOPUS/ASJP ). Then, our
both databases and provide valid reasons in terms of their quality and productivity.
(WoS), Microsoft Academic (MA), Dimensions, and Google Scholar (GS) are the main
bibliographic databases used in bibliometric analysis. In this study, Scopus and ASJP
are databases used for data collection. The main factor in choosing these databases is
that we can easily gather the data required for bibliometric analysis. In this context, an
online search of both databases was conducted on May 2021. To avoid the changes
caused by daily updating in the databases. Thus , the needed information was gathered.
In 2004 Elsevier introduced Scopus which became the largest database. Scopus
has a scope of approximately 19,500 peer-reviewed journals and more than 4.6 million
compared to the other databases. While, ASJP includes 145746 articles in 668 journals,
Accordingly, two powerful databases control a wide range of refereed information; the
ASJP (created by CERIST) and Scopus (created by Elsevier). Thus, our systematic
database search was conducted using the two above mentioned databases.
This study employed the bibliometric method and used quantitative and
statistical analysis to report several research articles on specific topics related to EFL
Algerian Scientific articles. Statistical analysis involves the comparison between the
analysis. Among these tools we have VOSviewer version 1.6.16 was published on
November 25, 2020. VOSviewer is one of the most widely-used tool for researchers
who tend to perform a bibliometric analysis written on any subject. This software was
developed at the Centre of Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, and it is
extracted from Scopus and ASJP, a bibliometric maps were created via the VOSviewer
2. the most collaborative authors, and the most collaborative countries (co-
authorship);
An electronic search on the SCOPUS and ASJP databases was performed via
using the keyword “EFL Algerian” to reach the relevant publications of the searched
term in the articles’ titles, references, indexes etc. Each data were retrieved in Comma-
separated values (CSV) format.CSV is a plain text file that contains a list of data to
exchange them between different application. The initial search resulted in a total
number of 10519 documents in ASJP (only 14 articles were chosen) and nine from
Scopus. The ASJP's sample is larger compared to Scopus for analytical reasons.
The procedures of this study were as follows (The data were normalized using
VOSviewer software):
1. Select the appropriate databases (Scopus and ASJP for our case) ;
5. Choose a type of data: Press the " Create " button on the File tab to Create a
map(choose the second option used for creating a map based on bibliographic
6. Choose data source: pick the first option, read data from the bibliographic file,
7. Select file: Browse data from Scopus file, press the Next button;
button;
10. Analyze and visualize your maps (for more clarification check VOSviewer
manual 1.6.16 version by Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman).
2. Research results
This section presents the results of the analyses that were carried out, as
outlined above. The results are presented according to the use of each database. The
bibliometric networks.
2.1. Scopus
cooperation pattern of the authors, organizations, and countries publishing on EFL. One
of the aims of our analysis is to explore the existing collaboration between those
2.1.1.1. Authors.
details about their publications. Based on the collected data, the cooperation network of
the authors related to the research area was visually mapped in ( Figure 4, Table 3).
Table 0- 1
Co-Authorship the Most Collaborative Authors ranked by the Number of Total Link
Strength related to EFL Algerian
Table 3 shows the results obtained from the analysis of the author co-
authorship among 14 authors; the most two collaborative authors in the subject of EFL
from this table that, though some authors linked relatively less, their publication was
cited a lot. The authors are Ghania. O (Documents=1, Citations=2, total link
14 authors. The nodes (the nodes can be for instance publications, journals, researchers,
or keywords) represent the authors, and the size of the author represents the number of
his or her publications. Lines between authors reflect co-authorship links (A link is
either a connection or a relationship between two items), authors with partnerships tend
to be placed on the map close to one another. Though links between authors represent
citations shared between those authors. Colors indicate clusters (A cluster is a set of
items) of authors who are relatively closely related to co-authorship links. It has been
seen from the following map (Figure 4), that there are eight clusters namely cluster-1
having 2 items, 1 document, and 1 total link strength. Cluster-2 having 2 items, 1
document, and 1 total link strength. Cluster-3 having 2 items, 1 document, and 1 total
link strength. Cluster-4 having 2 items, 1 document, and 1 total link strength. Cluster-5
having 2 items, 1 document, and 1 total link strength. Cluster-6 having 2 items, 2
documents, and 2 total link strengths. Cluster-7 having 1 item, 1 document, and 0 total
link strength. Cluster-8 having 1 item, 1 document, and 0 total link strength.
Figure 0- 1
Network Visualization of Authors’ Collaboration / Co-Authorship related to EFL
Algerian
published articles on EFL Algerian indexed by Scopus. Algeria was in the first position
with 8 publications, followed by France having 2, and Jordan was ranked the last with 1
publication.
Table 0- 2
Co-Authorship the Most Collaborative Countries ranked by the Number of Total Link
Strength related to EFL Algerian
From the data in Figure 5, it is apparent that there are 3 items distributed over
Jordan. Accordingly, the closer the two countries are, the stronger and greater their
connection. Moreover, the size of the nodes indicates their degree of publication and
the thickness of links indicates the intensity of collaboration between the countries.
The number of collaborators with Algeria is 4 and the total link strength is 2
with 8 publications. The main partner of Algeria is France. Almost as remarkably, the
total link strength of Jordan is 1 and the country has not cooperated with the two other
Figure 0- 2
Network visualization of the Collaborative Countries/ Co- Authorship related to EFL
Algeria
.
The used tool for this research is made for the construction of the co-
occurrence bibliometric map using all keywords, and index keywords obtained from the
Scopus database.
2.1.2.1. All keywords.
Table 0- 3
Co-Occurrence of all keywords related to EFL Algerian
ID KEYWORD OCCURRENCES T. L. S
1 Algeria 2 20
2 E-Learning 2 28
3 Evaluation 2 28
4 Gender Bias 2 6
5 Reading 2 28
Comprehension
6 Reading Skills 2 28
7 Students 2 28
8 Algerian 1 3
University
9 Analyse Of 1 13
Variances
10 Byram’s Model 1 5
11 Content Analysis 1 2
Method
12 Culture 1 5
13 Efl 1 3
14 Efl Classroom 1 3
15 Efl Teachers’ 1 4
Perceptions
16 Elt Textbooks 1 4
17 English-As-A- 1 13
Foreign-Language
18 Foreign Language 1 15
19 Gender Positioning 1 4
20 Improvement Of 1 13
Reading Skills
21 Information 1 15
Technology
22 Language Teaching 1 13
23 Language 1 13
Teachings
24 Learning English 1 15
25 Lmd System 1 3
26 Native Language 1 15
27 Online 1 15
Environments
28 Online Learning 1 15
Environment
29 Online Reading 1 13
Comprehension
30 Online Readings 1 13
31 Online Systems 1 15
32 Research Questions 1 15
33 Secondary Stage 1 5
34 Smartphones 1 3
35 Students, Beliefs 1 3
36 Syllabus Design 1 3
37 Teachers 1 3
38 Teachers’ Practices 1 5
39 Teaching 1 13
40 Teaching-Learning 1 13
Process
41 Textbook 1 2
Illustrations
42 User Interfaces 1 15
43 Visual Discourse 1 4
44 Web Mode 1 15
45 Yarmouk 1 5
University
As can be seen from the Table (above), the keywords are arranged to prove
which the most recurring in the research. In the articles examined within the framework
of our study, the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword option is set to 1 and
45 keywords are selected in the used software tool. Subsequently, the most used
appear one time.Which show a lack of usage and continuity in research, while the
keywords that have a greater number of repetitions allow identifying the topics most
What projets in this Figure is that the bibliometric analysis of keywords shows
that there are 45 keywords involved in this research with different numbers of links
(216), total link strength (226), and 3 main clusters. Each cluster represents a topic
related to EFL Algerian. Cluster 1(red) with (14 items, 37 links, and 41 total link
strength), cluster 2(green) with (10 items, 15 links, and 15 total link strength) next,
cluster 3(blue) with (6 items, 25 links, and 25 total link strength). Thus, the size of the
circles reflects the frequency of keywords. The larger size of a circle is the more
keywords have been re-occurred in publications. The thicker line between two words,
the closer relationship is. Furthermore, Circles with the same color cluster suggested a
similar topic.
Figure 0- 3
the occurrence in which a pair of references is cited together. Being so, the higher the
co-citation, the greater the similarity between references, i. e it can be assumed that
During our extraction of the cited references , we obtained 283 references. And
due to this large number, we decided to take only 15 references as a small sample that
Table 0- 4
Co-Citation of Cited References related to EFL Algerian
resources of EFL Algeria in Scopus appear with 283 citations. By the used software,
the analysis revealed that the nine articles cited 283 references with 134 total link
strenght. 15 references with a citation frequency greater than 1 were selected to create
the co-citation map, as shown in Figure 5 (all of them were classified into one cluster).
Reference co-citation analysis is an important means used to detect the structure and
growth of a specific domain. For example, Brantmeier’s, Sadker’s papers were cited 4,
2 times altogether respectively in those 283 documents. Others are cited once, like
The more co-citations two documents receive, the higher their co-citation
The map (Figure 7) shows the co-citation patterns of the nine articles cited at
least once within the studies we reviewed. It visualizes the broader EFL research co-
citation networks. In the Figure, nodes represent the co-citation data. In this way, the
importance of nodes does not reveal the high number of citations. But, it illustrates the
research themes that are closely related to EFL research. The author-named nodes
represent highly co-cited articles. The larger the node, the higher the citation will be.
The line connecting two nodes represents the co-citation link between the two
Looking at Figure 7, it is apparent that there is one cluster with 11 items and
2.2. ASJP
2.2.1.1. Authors.
Table 0- 5
Co-Authorship. The Most Collaborative Authors Ranked by the Number of Total Link
Strength.
It is apparent from this table (Table 7) that very few authors have very few
number citations. The Analysis revealed that the 14 articles, with a total of 21 authors
were identified, they divided into 14 clusters, as shown in Figure 6 . All of the 21
authors produced only one paper. The more times those authors share the authorship of
a paper, the stronger is the co-authorship connection between them. According to the
number of articles and the number of citations received, a little correlation is revealed
between authors, namely: Antir R., Berriche A., Boubekka S., Alioc houche F., Arabet
among different authors. The color, circle size, and thickness of connecting lines
indicate the strength of the relationship among the authors. Related authors, as
indicated by the same color, are commonly listed together. For example, the map
suggests that Hamane S ., Kerroum F., Benaissi Bouhass F., Arabet Mohamed A
belonging to the same cluster (6), (4) respectively have collaborated closely. From the
analysis, most of the authors have a weak collaboration with other authors ( 1 link for
each). Others do not have (0 links) which means no cooperation traced between them.
Figure 0- 5
Network visualization of authors’ collaboration / co-authorship related to EFL
Algerian
2.2.1.2. Countries.
Table 0- 6
Co-Authorship. The Most Collaborative Countries Ranked by the Number of Total Link
Strength related to EFL Algerian
TOTAL
ID COUNTRY DOCUMENTS CITATIONS LINK
STRENGTH
1 (Algeria) 2 0 0
2 Algeria 5 0 0
3 Annaba 1 0 0
Batna-2 University
4 1 0 0
(Algeria)
5 Chlef 1 0 0
6 Tizi-Ouzou 1 0 0
7 Tlemcen-Algeria 1 0 0
Regarding the co-authorship of countries in this field, the minimum articles
published by each country considered at least one article. According to these criteria, 7
countries were included in this analysis. In the context of results extracted from the
above table, the most publications countries are from Algeria (5, 2 documents ); next
associations between countries in terms of their publication, the total link strength is
equal to zero, which means neither Algeria nor Annaba have collaborated with each
Figure 9 indicates the top seven countries from where most EFL Algerian
research originated. Algeria has the leading position (7 documents, 0 total link strength),
followed by Annaba (1 document, 0 total link strength) and Batna (1 document, 0 total
link strength). The remaining distribution of countries represents the same. In the
There were seven countries listed as visualization items. We included all seven
countries are divided into seven clusters each cluster has different countries of co-
authorship, such as Algeria, Annaba, Batna, Chlef, Tizi-Ouzou, and Tlemcen, which
shows the diversification of research directions. The bigger nodes represent the
influential countries (Algeria). The links between nodes represent the cooperative
relationships among countries the distance between the nodes and the thickness of the
links represent the level of cooperation among countries. Unfortunately, no link has
Figure 0- 6
Network visualization of the collaborative countries/ co-authorship related to EFL
Algerian
Table 0- 7
Co-Occurrence of all keywords Related to EFL Algerian
ID Keyword OCCURRENCES T. L. S
1 Algerian Efl 1 11
2 Algerian Efl Context 1 1
Attitudes, Challenges
Collaborative Writing, Efl
Writing
3 Algerian Efl Education 1 5
4 Algerian Efl Middle 1 5
School Teachers
5 Assessment, Efl 1 1
University Classroom,
Innovation, University
Teacher, University
Student.
6 Assessment, Motivation, 1 1
Classroom.,
Accountability, Testing,
Evaluation
7 Awareness 1 5
8 Baccalaureate In Algeria 1 5
9 Based Learning, Efl 1 5
Context, Teachers’
Perceptions, Educational
10 Cblt. 1 5
11 Challenges And Prospects 1 5
12 Classroom Practices 1 5
13 Collocational 1 11
Competence, Efl Leaners,
Miscollocations, Words
14 Communicated, Efl 1 1
Performance, Dialogues
15 Conversational 1 1
Interaction, Ict, Learner
Initiative, Efl Learning.
16 Correlation 1 11
17 Critical Pedagogy, Efl, 1 1
Teaching, Learning
18 Cultural Content 1 5
19 Culture 1 5
20 Developmental Dyslexia 1 5
21 Dyslexia, Reality, 1 5
Pedagogy, Awareness,
Learning Difficulty,
Skills, Learning
Disabilities
22 Educational, School, 1 5
Teaching And Learning,
Classes
23 Educational, Teachers, 1 1
Knowledge, Dominant
Ideology
24 Efl Students 1 5
25 Efl Teachers 1 5
26 Essay Writings 1 11
27 Familiarity 1 5
28 Ict (Computer/Internet) – 1 1
Extensive Reading - Efl
Classroom.
29 Integrated Approach 1 5
30 "Intercultural
Communication, Design,,
Analysis, Content
Analysis, Critical
Discourse
analysis" 5
31 Intercultural Task 1 5
32 Intertextuality - Efl 1 1
Learners - Text -
Discourse.
33 Language Proficiency 1 11
34 Mobile Learning, M- 1 5
Learning, Smartphones,
Computer-Assisted
Language Learning
35 Mobile-Assisted 1 5
Language Learning
36 Noun 1 11
37 Perception, Discourse, 1 1
Communicative,
Academic Contexts,
Spoken Or Written
Language
38 Policies 1 5
39 Proficiency, Qualitative 1 1
Knowledge,
Pronunciation, Lexical
40 Project Work 1 5
41 Collocations
have the same number of occurring (1). there is a positive and significant correlation
between the number of keywords and the number of citations. The most common
keywords, as reported in Table 8, are Algerian Efl, Algerian EFL Context, Attitudes,
Challenges, and Collaborative Writing, EFL Writing etc. All of them appeared only
once with different total link strengths. This is probably indicated a lack of continuity in
As seen from Figure 10, the im[ortant concepts embedded in the selected
publications can be mapped into one cluster. The analysis reveals that the term
‘Algerian EFL’ was highly associated with: essay writing, lexical collocations, students,
competence, and language proficiency. The second link was the term ‘use’ has many
proficiency, and other words. What is noticeable from the presented results is that there
is a large consistency between the used keywords .i. e, there is a close relationship
between the items of the covered topic (with 11links, 1occurrence for all items). The
main reason for researchers to combine the concepts of this context would be their
interest in studying EFL Algerian. The map includes one cluster with 12 items;
language proficiency, lexical collocations, noun, student, undergraduate, use, and verb.
which are parts of the research areas of EFL Algerian. The lines linking the keywords
express the sharing of their appearance in the same research work. The color, circle size,
and thickness of connecting lines represent relationships with other keywords. In this
cluster, all the keywords have the same color, that is why they are commonly listed
together.
Figure 0- 7
Network visualization of all keywords/ co-occurrence related to EFL Algerian
Table 0- 8
Co-Citation of Cited References related to EFL Algerian
It is apparent from Table 10 that the analysis revealed the 14 articles cited 17
references. All the references are equal in a citation frequency were selected to create
co-citation map, as shown in Figure 9. Among the first author of these 14 articles,
Politics And Education” “Can Education Change Society? ” were published in 1996,
2012 respectively, while no other author contributed more than 1 article, such as
Alkahtani, S., Burns, A., Christensen, L., & Aldridge, J. The further analysis presented
that there is a positive relationship between the number of references and the number of
citations. In this section, the significant and positive correlation demonstrates the
impact of the number of references on the number of citations that a study is likely to
receive.
based on their specialists in EFL. These references, which located in 14 clusters with
different circles in the network. The most frequent references are depicted by Apple M.
W (1996), this author belongs to cluster 3 with only one citation and without having
any link with other authors published in the EFL context. A few links appear between
those references (4 links) with eight total link strengths. Thereby identifying the most
Conclusion
GENERAL CONCLUSION
The present study was conducted to determine the EFL Algerian scientific
articles' progress in Scopus and ASJP platforms. The emphasis was on three main
notable aspects of bibliometric analysis by using the VOSviewer tool. Namely, co-
authorship (the most collaborative authors; and the most collaborative countries), co-
occurrence (the most used keywords), and co-citation (cited references). It aimed to ate
forms of these aspects in their written articles. It also sought to determine the extent to
which the Algerian scientists have improved their writing abiprovide an in-depth
Scopus and ASJP. Many authors have written about EFL Algerian as the main subject.
Prior to the process of analysis, we hypothesized that EFL learners‘ writing skill does
not develop significantly after three years of instruction. The Alternative hypothesis set
forth advocated that EFL learners‘ writing skill develops significantly after three years.
Hence, to test these hypotheses, a bibliometric analysis was adopted. The three
addressed each couple of elements from each database separately. The statistical
The results of examining the bibliometric method obtained from the study with
the statistical analysis revealed that the Algerian scientists had not made any
considerable progress concerning the previously mentioned aspects of the bibliometric
Consequently, the null hypothesis established earlier that EFL learners‘ writing
skill does not develop significantly after a three-year period of instruction is refuted.
2. Pedagogical Implications
This study investigates the EFL Algerian scientific articles and compares
Scopus, ASJP databases. It provides readers with a map of EFL research conducted on
both databases. The results could be insightful for both researchers and practitioners.
For new scholars interested in EFL research, this study offers a comprehensive
overview of existing EFL studies. This study can also help these scholars understand
the characteristics of the user databases. In addition, this study can also help these
scholars identify the blind spots in current research and future trends. It provides
valuable guidance to scholars concerned with bibliometric analysis that can apply in
This study has limitations in several aspects.Although it has spotted the light on
how the process of publishing an article in such databases is, a lack in the collected
data from Scopus, made the sample not representative enough. The number of articles
understudy does not exceed 23 articles. It seems insufficient to represent a whole group
of more than 9000 articles. Still, it is important to note that it was difficult for the
about EFL. Hence, it might be difficult to generalize the findings to what was obtained.
Moreover, the Vosviewer program was designed for the analysis of the articles chosen
from Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, and PubMed; though, the data of ASJP
have been hold manually to be extracted in CSV format. Furthermore, time was limited
intended to publish this work as an article on Scopus or Wos database to make the work
more valuable. Unfortunately, this is not available since the procedures take much time,
maybe two months or more. Items dealing with index keywords and cited sources were
not tackled due to the absence of articles’ indexes, also an error was marked to the
insufficient number of sources despite the number of articles has been doubled (ASJP).
Consequently, the results of this study might lack some accuracy and reliability.
Therefore, to expand the study on this topic, future studies may be able to use
This subject can be discussed in greater detail with the different databases
and other categories of literature, for instance, review papers and book
chapters, parts of articles such as the abstract, with more details and focus
on ASJP database.
The results of the findings obtained from the bibliometric analysis of this
study concerning the EFL Algerian can be used as a guide for the related
researchers for their studies in the future. For instance, they can get details
about existing trends in the field by examining the distribution of the most
used keywords by years, the most collaborative countries, or they can plan
of articles taken or approved for the study is large, may require more time
and effort to do it.Therefore, choose the appropriate tool to unload the data
any. A larger sample would allow for generalizing the findings to the whole
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