A study of factors affecting research productivity of Iranian women in ISI

Based on the fact that in terms of research productivity, performance of women is weaker than men’s, and because little is known on the factors affecting academic women’s productivity in Iran, the present article aims to study factors affecting research productivity of Iranian women in ISI. To do this, at first, women who have already had published documents indexed in ISI were identified through Web of Science. Afterwards, in order to collect their view regarding factors affecting women’s research productivity, a researcher-made questionnaire was used. To analyze the collected data, the statistical software SPSS (version 17) was used. Both descriptive (Percentage and Frequency) and inferential (ANOVA) statistics were employed to reach valid findings. The findings indicate that the most motivational factors affecting positively publishing scholarly articles by Iranian women are ‘Getting promoted in scientific rank’, ‘Intrinsic talents’, ‘Perseverance and adventitious knowledge’, ‘Feeling of being useful in society’, ‘Getting promoted in job’, ‘Being encouraged by friends and family’, ‘Religious lessons regarding the importance of science’, and ‘Attempt to show individual capabilities’. Finally, some remarks for the improvement of the current condition are highlighted.