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ACU tops list of Australia’s highest-cited researchers

Professor Herb Marsh from IPPE is the first academic in Australia to achieve the milestone H-Index of 150.

Recognised as the most productive educational psychologist in the world, Professor Herb W Marsh from ACU's Institute for Positive Psychology and Education has recently been ranked the highest Australian researcher from an Australian university in a list by the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas’s (CSIC) Ranking Web of Universities.

Funded by the European Commission, the list ranks 2,250 of the world’s most highly-cited scholars with an H-Index (published papers and times cited in other papers) higher than 100. They are identified according to their declared presence in the Google Scholar Citations database.

Professor Marsh is Australia’s first Australian researcher from an Australian university to achieve a milestone H-Index of 150. He is in the top 1 per cent across all researchers in the world across all disciplines and is ranked 216th on the CSIC list, keeping good company with Sigmund Freud at number one, Michel Foucault at number seven and Noam Chomsky at number 103.

His efforts have contributed to the success of ACU’s ambitious research intensification program and the University’s equal first ranking in psychology across Australian Universities in the last Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) round.

Professor Marsh was also recently announced the winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science Award by the Australian Psychological Society (APS). As APS's most prestigious award, it recognises one senior Australian psychological researcher whose outstanding theoretical and empirical contributions have made a difference to psychology and the Australian Community as a whole.

Professor Marsh introduced the ‘big-fish-little-pond effect’ frame of reference in 1984 in collaboration with John W. Parker, and has published influential research on self-concept and motivational constructs, as well as evaluations of teaching/educational effectiveness.

He also coined the phrase ‘substantive-methodological research synergy’ which underpins his research efforts. In addition to his methodological focus on structural equation models, multilevel modelling and factor analysis, his major substantive interests include developmental psychology, sports psychology, the peer review process, gender differences, peer support and anti-bullying interventions.