Living without student research projects.

When it comes to diversity," physical therapy curricula define the term. There are many common elements to our curricula as well--some good, some bad, some inconsequential. I share the view with many of my colleagues that each program should serve the primary purpose of developing thinking, capable, scientific practitioners prepared to practice without referral. This alone is a mighty challenge. But then we compound the challenge by adding unrealistic burdens to our education programs that not only interfere with the students' preparation, but also with the faculty's ability to be productive academicians. Required research projects for entry-level students are a good example.

In spite of their noble intent, required projects distract students from more relevant issues and give students a false impression of the research process. Within the confines of entry-level education, students cannot possibly understand the nuances of questions, assimilate the background literature, develop theoretical bases, and comprehend measurement and design issues. They are also unlikely to fully understand the statistical analyses they use. As a result, students often develop an unrealistic and superficial impression of what it takes to do research and what it takes to be a researcher. in addition, the burden for conducting research appears to shift from the faculty to the students.

In a field with a paucity of researchers and research productivity, how long can we afford to burden faculties with the task of supervising large numbers of student projects? Veteran researchers working with a limited number of graduate students know the time and effort needed to train these advanced students in the research process, yet junior faculty in physical therapy often find themselves supervising many student research projects. The result is that the research enterprise becomes skewed, with the student efforts taking precedence and the faculty unable to develop and focus their content expertise and research capabilities. Faculty members who would never consider treating a patient with a technique in which they are poorly trained often do not think twice about supervising research in content areas they have never studied, using methods they do not fully understand. Faculty do this in a misguided effort to help their students. Student research, then, is often guided by faculty members who are not actively engaged in their own research, let alone in research in the area they are supervising. Proper attention to the subtleties of measurement and other issues as applied to the specific topic is often lacking. Not surprisingly there is frustration for research novices as thay face obstacles that better-prepared advisors might have been able to foresee.

My firm view that we should discontinue the widespread practice of required entry-level research projects may seem paradoxical, considering that I have spent much of my professional career promoting research. This view is based, however, not on a bias developed in isolation, but on insights gained from visiting dozens of schools, conducting research, and editing this journal. Entrylevel students must develop an appreciation of science and scientific practice, and they must be capable of reading research reports. But to suggest that they can do this by conducting research would be akin to suggesting that writing a play is a prerequisite to reading Shakespeare.

Well-trained and well-intentioned faculty often fail to develop their own lines of programmatic research because the quantum unit of research, that is, the "do-able" research project, is defined by what a student 6an achieve within the confines of his or her entry-level training. Clinical relevance is many times sacrificed because of the need to complete the project. The research may be shallow or methodologically flawed and all too often is based on too few subjects to allow for valid generalizations. As a result of their continual involvement with these student projects, faculty do not develop their own research efforts. They do not prepare themselves to seek extramural funding to support meaningful research, and they also fail to attain the credentials necessary for tenure. We cannot continue to consume our young academicians' time and energy in pursuits that almost guarantee their failure as productive researchers and their inability to become tenured members of faculties. Contributors to the journal often teff me that they cannot meet our deadlines because they are too busy with student projects!

I am not suggesting that all entry-level student research is "bad"; however, in view of the time and effort expended, there may be relatively little gained by it. You can no more appreciate research by tasting a bit of it under contrived circumstances than you can appreciate the taste of Coca-Cola by inhaling carbon dioxide. In addition, student research does not appear to have contributed to the development of a new generation of researchers.

Another concern is that the research projects become too central a focus in the final days of each student's education. I find it ironic that often the final student "experience" before graduation is the completion and reporting of the research project. We are supposed to be training practitioners; it seems illogical to make the consummate and consuming educational experience one so separate and apart from practice. Our clinical literature remains sparse, and our practitioners continue to struggle with their ability to scientifically document practice through credible and publishable case studies. All practitioners should be able to practice in a scientific manner and to describe that practice in a scientific manner. Why then are so many of our terminal projects research efforts when they could be credible, scientific case reports? In writing a good case study, students demonstrate their ability to understand and analyze literature; to express a theoretical basis for treatment; and to develop an understanding of clinical measurement, decision making, and treatment.

All practitioners should be scientific, but not all will do research. That is true of all professions, even of those with far more educational resources than we have in physical therapy. Research projects may be acceptable electives for a manageable number of select students, but when we seek to have au entrylevel students do projects, we shift our focus away from developing scientific practitioners; we further alienate the educational process from the practice arena; and we use phenomenal numbers of resources that could, in my view, be better spent.

We need to revisit our demands upon our students and focus our resources more fully on the development of scientific practitioners. We also need to accept the reality that it is primarily the faculty's responsibility to conduct research and to contribute new knowledge. Physical therapy's current system of entry-level, student-focused research cannot be found in fields that have large numbers of productive researchers. In physical therapy, the research enterprise is out of joint, and, to paraphrase a well-known quotation, the time has come to set it right.