Vocational Guidance And Psychology In Spain: Scientometric Study

Introduction. Studies into research activity are possible by quantifying certain variables present in articles published in specialist journals. Once quantified, numerical data are obtained which summarise research activity characteristics. These data are obtained through scientometric indicators. This is an objective and verifiable method whose results can be both reproduced and applied to a large amount of data, thus allowing significant results to be obtained in statistical Studies.Method. In this work we carried out a scientometric study on Psychology and Vocational Guidance in Spain (1990-2008) by analysing the following scientific journals: Revista Espanola de Orientacion y Psicopedagogia (REOP), Bordon. Revista de Pedagogia, Revista de Investigacion Educativa (RIE) and Revista de Psicologia General y Aplicada. Of these articles, we selected those that expressly refer to vocational guidance, and we centred the study on personal productivity, institutional productivity, and on analysing the contents, instruments that researchers used in their works and references.Results. From these results, we note that most of the authors who publish in Spain in this area belong to the national university. Also, the most relevant issues has been to Vocational counselling / vocational guidance, and Program / Systems Intervention.Discussion and conclusion. Also, we stress that these studies provide direct communication between researchers and guidance professionals, allowing science reaches everyone.