Abstract
BACKGROUND: Disconnection between efficacy and implementation remained in sport and exercise science, making it vital to understand the relationship between research quality and public attention. Citation score (CS) and Journal impact factor (JIF) are the main metrics of research quality. Alternatively, Altmetric score (AS) tracks article dissemination on social media to reflect public attention. This study aimed to explore the CS-AS correlations on levels of article types and journals, and predictors of citation performance. METHODS: Web of Science Core Collection was systematically searched for research and review studies published in 2022 in the top-ranked 30 journals under the sport science category of Journal Citation Reports™. Publications from 2022 were selected to accumulate citations while preserving contemporary representativeness. CS and AS scores were retrieved from the website Dimensions (https://app.dimensions.ai/discover/publication). RESULTS: A total of 5,106 articles were retrieved with a median CS and AS of 10 and 6, respectively. A significant CS-AS correlation was observed (ρ = 0.3481, p < 0.0001). The correlation strength of the review study (ρ = 0.4047, p < 0.0001) was significantly higher (p = 0.001) than that of research articles (ρ = 0.2975, p < 0.0001). Significant CS-AS correlations were found in 25 out of 30 journals (ρ ranged from 0.7084 to 0.1238, p ranged from 0.05 to <0.0001). AS and JIF were significant predictors of CS, with the strength of AS (β = 0.2060, p < 0.001) higher than JIF (β = 0.0720, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: In the 30 top-ranked sport science journals, media attention was correlated with citation performance, with the strength higher in reviews than in research articles. The significant correlations showed up in 25 out of 30 included journals with different strengths. Social media attention can be a more powerful predictor than journal prestige in sport science, with a moderate predictive influence.