A bibliometric analysis of theses at the School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyse the Master of Philosophy and the Doctor of Philosophy theses publications by postgraduate students at the School of Nuclear and Allied Science (SNAS), University of Ghana from (2008 - 2016) using the INIS database as the source of data. The study used the bibliometric method. The purposive sampling technique was used to retrieve four hundred and fourteen (414) theses records from a population of five hundred and thirty eight (538) theses records published in Ghana. The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) database and the search query language (country:Ghana AND recordtype:Thesis/Dissertation) were the main instruments used in retrieving the data before extracting them onto Microsoft excel spreadsheet for analysis. The major findings of the study revealed that the yearly publication trend of graduate student theses at SNAS showed a constant rise and fall in the number of theses published over the period. There was also a big gender gap with male students dominating their female counterparts with (300 or 79.71%) counts. The most frequently used keyword assigned by the indexer (subject specialist) was radiation protection with (189) counts. It is recommended that SNAS should gain autonomy from the University of Ghana, the parent University as it will enable it to run its academic programs by itself, take decisions that will benefit its smooth running and management in the long run and also help to accelerate the plans already in place for a nuclear power plant to be added to the energy mix for Ghana.