Nicholas Spaull

2.3k total citations · 1 hit paper
21 papers, 1.0k citations indexed

About

Nicholas Spaull is a scholar working on Education, Safety Research and Developmental and Educational Psychology. According to data from OpenAlex, Nicholas Spaull has authored 21 papers receiving a total of 1.0k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 11 papers in Education, 6 papers in Safety Research and 5 papers in Developmental and Educational Psychology. Recurrent topics in Nicholas Spaull's work include School Choice and Performance (9 papers), Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (6 papers) and Reading and Literacy Development (5 papers). Nicholas Spaull is often cited by papers focused on School Choice and Performance (9 papers), Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (6 papers) and Reading and Literacy Development (5 papers). Nicholas Spaull collaborates with scholars based in South Africa and United States. Nicholas Spaull's co-authors include Janeli Kotzé, Hamsa Venkat, Elizabeth J. Pretorius, Stephen Taylor, Servaas van der Berg, Martin Gustafsson, Gabrielle Wills, Brendan Maughan‐Brown, Dan J. Stein and Mark Tomlinson and has published in prestigious journals such as SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología, PLoS ONE and Reading and Writing.

In The Last Decade

Nicholas Spaull

21 papers receiving 932 citations

Hit Papers

South Africa's Education Crisis: The quality of education... 2013 2026 2017 2021 2013 50 100 150 200 250
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. South Africa's Education Crisis: The quality of education in South Africa 1994-2011
    2013 265 citations Nicholas Spaull profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Nicholas Spaull South Africa 13 666 225 160 133 118 21 1.0k
Sue Thomson Australia 19 877 1.3× 161 0.7× 77 0.5× 137 1.0× 104 0.9× 87 1.1k
Michael S. Knapp United States 24 1.2k 1.9× 242 1.1× 49 0.3× 165 1.2× 72 0.6× 70 1.6k
Jennifer King Rice United States 17 1.2k 1.8× 116 0.5× 92 0.6× 122 0.9× 41 0.3× 55 1.4k
Courtney Bell United States 15 1.2k 1.9× 129 0.6× 87 0.5× 276 2.1× 58 0.5× 37 1.5k
Motoko Akiba United States 19 1.5k 2.2× 147 0.7× 323 2.0× 326 2.5× 42 0.4× 43 1.9k
Alison Black United States 9 869 1.3× 346 1.5× 110 0.7× 109 0.8× 285 2.4× 14 1.3k
Joseph R. Cimpian United States 14 473 0.7× 103 0.5× 177 1.1× 215 1.6× 71 0.6× 35 1.0k
Vi‐Nhuan Le United States 15 911 1.4× 108 0.5× 71 0.4× 111 0.8× 35 0.3× 58 1.1k
Charles M. Achilles United States 15 1.3k 1.9× 145 0.6× 119 0.7× 165 1.2× 82 0.7× 40 1.6k
Krista D. Mattern United States 18 729 1.1× 104 0.5× 147 0.9× 96 0.7× 50 0.4× 87 1.1k

Countries citing papers authored by Nicholas Spaull

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Nicholas Spaull's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Nicholas Spaull with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Nicholas Spaull more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Nicholas Spaull

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Nicholas Spaull. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Nicholas Spaull. The network helps show where Nicholas Spaull may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Nicholas Spaull

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Nicholas Spaull. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Nicholas Spaull based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Nicholas Spaull. Nicholas Spaull is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Hunt, Xanthe, Dan J. Stein, Nicholas Spaull, & Mark Tomlinson. (2021). Hunger as a driver of depressive symptoms: Optimising responses to mental health aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. South African Medical Journal. 111(7). 604–604. 4 indexed citations
2.
Spaull, Nicholas & Servaas van der Berg. (2020). Counting the cost: COVID-19 school closures in South Africa and its impact on children. SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología. 10(1). 39 indexed citations
3.
Spaull, Nicholas, et al.. (2020). Investigating the comprehension iceberg: Developing empirical benchmarks for early-grade reading in agglutinating African languages. SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología. 10(1). 32 indexed citations
4.
Spaull, Nicholas. (2020). COVID-19 and schooling in South Africa: Who should go back to school first?. Prospects. 51(4). 563–572. 10 indexed citations
5.
Spaull, Nicholas, et al.. (2019). Girls Do Better. Agenda. 33(4). 11–28. 13 indexed citations
6.
Richter, Linda K., et al.. (2019). Interactions between the family and the state in children's health, education and social development. 1 indexed citations
7.
Spaull, Nicholas. (2018). Who makes it into PISA? Understanding the impact of PISA sample eligibility using Turkey as a case study (PISA 2003–PISA 2012). Assessment in Education Principles Policy and Practice. 26(4). 397–421. 12 indexed citations
8.
Spaull, Nicholas, Servaas van der Berg, Gabrielle Wills, Martin Gustafsson, & Janeli Kotzé. (2016). Laying Firm Foundations: Getting Reading Right. SSRN Electronic Journal. 7 indexed citations
9.
Pretorius, Elizabeth J. & Nicholas Spaull. (2016). Exploring relationships between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension amongst English second language readers in South Africa. Reading and Writing. 29(7). 1449–1471. 57 indexed citations
10.
Spaull, Nicholas. (2016). Disentangling the language effect in South African schools: Measuring the impact of ‘language of assessment’ in grade 3 literacy and numeracy. South African Journal of Childhood Education. 6(1). 20–20. 24 indexed citations
11.
Berg, Servaas van der, Nicholas Spaull, Gabrielle Wills, Martin Gustafsson, & Janeli Kotzé. (2016). Identifying Binding Constraints in Education. SSRN Electronic Journal. 31 indexed citations
12.
Venkat, Hamsa & Nicholas Spaull. (2015). What do we know about primary teachers’ mathematical content knowledge in South Africa? An analysis of SACMEQ 2007. International Journal of Educational Development. 41. 121–130. 84 indexed citations
13.
Spaull, Nicholas & Janeli Kotzé. (2015). Starting behind and staying behind in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development. 41. 13–24. 124 indexed citations
14.
Spaull, Nicholas. (2015). Accountability and capacity in South African education. Education as Change. 19(3). 113–142. 14 indexed citations
15.
Taylor, Stephen & Nicholas Spaull. (2015). Measuring access to learning over a period of increased access to schooling: The case of Southern and Eastern Africa since 2000. International Journal of Educational Development. 41. 47–59. 20 indexed citations
16.
Spaull, Nicholas, et al.. (2015). Examining oral reading fluency among Grade 5 rural English Second Language (ESL) learners in South Africa? An analysis of NEEDU 2013. South African Journal of Childhood Education. 5(2). 12 indexed citations
17.
Maughan‐Brown, Brendan & Nicholas Spaull. (2014). HIV-Related Discrimination among Grade Six Students in Nine Southern African Countries. PLoS ONE. 9(8). e102981–e102981. 12 indexed citations
18.
Spaull, Nicholas & Stephen Taylor. (2014). Access to What? Creating a Composite Measure of Educational Quantity and Educational Quality for 11 African Countries. Comparative Education Review. 59(1). 133–165. 43 indexed citations
19.
20.
Spaull, Nicholas. (2012). Poverty & privilege: Primary school inequality in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development. 33(5). 436–447. 199 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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