Mapping the Discipline of the Olympic Games An AuthorCocitation Analysis

An established method for identifying the different components of a discipline is author cocitation analysis (ACA). ACA is a bibiometric technique that enables a map of the discipline, over a finite time period, to represented. ACA was pioneered by, among others, White and Griffith (1981) from the Drexel College of Information Studies, and Small (1973) and Garfield from ISI, who produce the computerised citation databases SciSearch and Social SciSearch. Since these early developments, the techniques have been applied to an expanding range of disciplines. McCain (1990) describes a variety of cocitation techniques. The authors have previously applied ACA to physical education pedagogy (Toohey & Warning, 1994).