Quantitative reflections on the development of psychological science in Lithuania in the journals "Lietuvos TSR aukštųjų mokyklų mokslo darbai. Pedagogika ir psichologija” and "Psichologija. Mokslo darbai”

Straipsnyje išanalizuota nuo 1962 iki 1977 metų žurnale „Lietuvos TSR aukštųjų mokyklų mokslo darbai. Pedagogika ir psichologija“ bei nuo 1980 iki 2015 metų žurnale „Psichologija. Mokslo darbai“ publikuotų straipsnių kalba, tematika, tipai, tyrimo planai ir duomenų statistinės analizės būdai. Atlikus kiekybinę 457 straipsnių analizę, darytina išvada, kad galime įžvelgti akivaizdų lūžio tašką – 1990 metus. Iki nepriklausomybės atkūrimo parengti straipsniai buvo ideologiškai suvaržyti, statistinės analizės metodai atsiliko nuo pasaulinių tendencijų, o atkūrus nepriklausomybę publikuojami straipsniai gana artimi pasaulinėms tendencijoms.[...] The purpose of the present study was to analyze the development of psychological science in the oldest Lithuanian journal of scientific psychology “Lietuvos TSR aukštųjų mokyklų mokslo darbai. Pedagogika ir psichologija“ (1962–1977) and “Psichologija. Mokslo darbai” (1980–2015) taking into account research designs, types of articles, research topics, kinds of statistical analysis, and the language that the article was written in. A quantitative analysis of 457 articles was performed. [...] Three main groups of research topics could be distinguished: 1) research topics that have never been popular, for example, psychology of conscious states or biological psychology; 2) research topics that decreased in popularity, for example, cognitive or pedagogical psychology; 3) research topics which, because of ideological repressions, became popular just before the re-establishment of Lithuania’s independence, for example, clinical psychology. The analysis of different time periods also shows that the experimental design has become less prevalent in the studies. However, more studies started using the correlational design. By investigating statistical procedures in empirical papers, it became apparent that the Lithuanian psychological science lagged behind in this respect, probably because of the “Iron curtain” which separated Lithuania from the rest of the world for a long time. In summary, 1990 was the breaking point which brought many changes into the Lithuanian psychological science because of the end of censorship. After the Lithuania’s re-establishment of independence, papers in the journal “Psichologija. Mokslo darbai” are becoming much clo closer to the world trends of psychological research