A Historical Analysis of the European Journal of Psychological Assessment

Abstract

We conducted a historical analysis of the articles published in the first (1992–1996) and last 5 years (2005–2009) of the European Journal of Psychological Assessment (EJPA), mainly on the basis of an analysis of abstracts and keywords of articles. We dealt with the impact of EJPA, the main characteristics of its articles, its evolution, and to what extent main features in psychological assessment are represented in the journal. EJPA is a journal with a steadily rising impact factor that is relatively high for the field of assessment. Authorship is mainly European and coauthors usually come from the same country. The personality domain has gained popularity at the expense of cognition and education. Questionnaires are the most often and increasingly popular assessment method; there is also a tendency to employ multiple instruments and methods, and computerized assessment. More recent volumes have fewer substance-oriented and more measurement-oriented studies, notably studies in which validity is addressed by factor-analytic procedures. The incomplete coverage of recent developments in psychological assessment is discussed.