Citation Metrics of Open Access and Subscription Journals in Education: An Analysis in Scopus’s Education Category

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether, in the Education field, subscription-based journals accumulate a higher number of citations than open access (OA) journals in the upper classification strata (Q1 and Q2) of Scopus and compares their performance across key metrics. The study employed a quantitative approach and analyzed 1470 Education journals indexed in Scopus from 2020 to 2023. Journals were categorized into subscription-based and open access models and stratified into quartiles (Q1–Q4) and the top 10%. Key metrics assessed included CiteScore, total citations, publication volume, and the percentage of cited articles. Statistical analyses—such as t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and chi-square tests—were applied to compare the performance of models across these classification strata. Subscription journals dominate Q1/Q2 and the “top 10%” in overall quantity and cumulative citations, exhibiting higher CiteScores and a higher percentage of cited articles in these strata. The results provide relevant insights into the broader scholarly publishing landscape, highlighting general implications for editorial policies, global visibility of research outputs, and equitable access to academic knowledge, thus offering valuable perspectives for librarians, information professionals, and information scientists.