Scholarly productivity: a regional study of physical therapy faculty in schools of allied health.

The scholarly productivity of physical therapy faculty has increasingly become a topic of pivotal interest to faculty, academic administrators, and the profession.1 in a 1982 national survey of physical therapy program directors, 92% of the respondents indicated that they planned to develop an environment that promotes research. Over 90% of the program directors indicated that they planned to recruit faculty with research skills and support faculty in developing research skills and in conducting research.2 Data from the American Physical Therapy Association's 1983 national survey of physical therapy faculty strongly suggest that the redirection of resources and attention toward increased scholarly productivity was indeed warranted.3 In the 1983 survey, 8 of 10 responding physical therapy faculty reported spending three to five hours a week on research activities. Forty-seven percent of physical therapy faculty rated fiscal support for continued professional development of research skills as very adequate" or "inadequate." Moreover, about 61% of full-time physical therapy faculty with doctorates (n = 56) and only 16% of full-time faculty with master's degrees (n = 251) had published three or more journal articles during their career.3 Insufficient numbers of doctorally prepared faculty with strong research backgrounds have been cited as a major barrier to expanding the body of knowledge in physical therapy and to meeting the standards for academic credibility in institutions of higher education.1 Major problem areas have been limited research focus and environments, low scholarly productivity, and insufficient numbers of both clinical research centers and postdoctoral training opportunities. I Notwithstanding these barriers, the importance of augmenting faculty scholarly productivity now calls into question the viability of earlier attempts to redress well-documented shortfalls in faculty productivity. Wide dissemination of approaches that facilitate physical therapy faculty scholarly productivity must await the development and conduct of successful faculty-development models. in the meantime, a more central question is apparent: What documented progress, if any, has occurred since 1983? A large regional study was conducted among allied health faculty at south-eastern academic health science centers for the purpose of developing profiles of the scholarly activities of allied health faculty members.4 The responses of physical therapy faculty participating in this regional study are reported in this article. The specific questions addressed were as follows:

1. To what extent have physical therapy

faculty members published

journal articles, books, and chapters

in books?

2. Were the journal articles written

by physical therapy faculty members

reports of research findings,

dissemination of project or program

information, testimonials,

or editorials?

3. Are physical therapy faculty members

involved in scholarly activities

such as editorial board appointments,

book reviews, monograph 

preparation, instructional program

development, and professional

meeting presentation?

4. In what types of laboratory, clinical,

educational, and survey research

activities are physical therapy faculty

involved?

5. To what extent have physical therapy

faculty members obtained

grant support or been involved in

grant-related activities?

6. What are physical therapy faculty

members' perceptions regarding

factors that encourage and assist

faculty scholarship, factors that

discourage or prevent faculty

scholarship, and the importance

of physical therapy faculty scholarship

in future academic promotion

considerations?

7. How do the results of this regional

study of physical therapy faculty

compare with the result: of the

APTA's 1983 national survey of

physical therapy faculty?3

Review of Related Literature

The importance of scholarly activities to allied health academic affairs has been underscored by researchers over the past decade. In 1975, a study was conducted of the promotion policies of selected allied health institutions. The findings showed that, of th top five considerations for faculty promotion, publications and research ranked second and third, respectively.[5] Several years later, Conine et al surveyed allied health faculty members on the relative importance of selected activities to academic promotion.6 The activities ranked highest in importance were published articles in refereed publications, papers presented at scientific meetings, evidence of professional development, books or monographs, published speeches and abstracts, frequency of citation by other authors, amount of research awards or grant support, and membership on departmental-school-university committees.[6] Other recently published statements by leading allied health educators confirm the importance of these findings.-9 An accepted index of faculty scholar productivity is the total number of refereed journal articles authored by faculty member divided by the total years employed in higher education.[1-12] The result is an unweighted publication rate per year that can be used for comparative purposes. Other measures of scholarly productivity include the frequency of sole or first authorships in refereed journals; authorship of books, chapters in books, and book reviews; citations by other authors; invited presentations at professional meetings; and approved peer-reviewed grant applications. (1-12) In a study of 94 Canadian rehabilitation medicine educators, representing 80% of this population across all Canadian universities, Onuoha found that 25.5% of the respondents had three or more refereed journal articles, 22.3% had one or two publications, and 52% had none. (13) Similarly, those with more than three presentations at scientific meetings constituted 36% of the sample, 28.7% had made one or two presentations, and 35% had not made a presentation in the preceding five years,13 By contrast, in walker et al's international study of physical therapy educators in Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Nigeria, and South Africa, 39% had presented papers at national or international meetings and 36% had published in journals or books.14 in a study of scholarly productivity of 1,969 allied health faculty, representing 10 allied health disciplines including physical therapy, the respondents reported spending only a very limited amount of time on research activities. A majority (43%) had never presented a paper at a professional meeting, and only 36% of the respondents reported having been an author of a research article. Consistent with this publishing record, a majority of allied health educators stated they lacked adequate skills in the areas of research funding, statistical analysis, publishing a paper, developing a research design, and writing protocols and proposals.15,16 The APTA's 1983 survey explored faculty accomplishments within academic physical therapy departments. Data were reported on the productivity and achievement characteristics of 345 physical therapy faculty, 83% of the total sample of faculty identified for study. The study's respondents predominantly were female, were educated at the master's-degree level, and held the academic rank of instructor or assistant professor (67%). Twenty-eight percent were tenured.3 This profile was at variance with the national profile of all higher education faculty, who tend to be male, doctorally educated, and higher ranked. The overall tenure rate (70%) for faculty in higher education, nationally, is more than twice that found for physical therapy faculty.[10] The 1983 APTA survey also determined that 49% of full-time physical therapy faculty had published at least one article. Only 24% of full-time physical therapy faculty had published three or more articles, and 42% had published none.3

Method

This study was a component of a larger regional study of faculty employed in 23 schools of allied health located in academic health centers in the southeastern United States. A master list of full-time allied health faculty (N = 942) was developed from faculty rosters provided by each school's dean. Within this group, there were 130 full-time physical therapy faculty in 19 of the 23 schools. The 19 participating physical therapy academic programs represented 70% of the physical therapy programs in the region. The remaining 30% are located in other academic settings such as medical schools, independent departments, and schools of physical therapy.

An investigator-developed instrument entitled "Survey of the Scholarly Activities of Allied Health Faculty" was used to collect the data. The self-report instrument contained eight questions designed to elicit biographical and demographic information including the respondents' allied health credentials, earned academic degrees, age, sex, academic rank, tenure status, and number of years employed in higher education. Four questions pertained to the number of papers authored by the respondents that had been published or accepted for publication in refereed journals. In addition to the number of journal articles, the respondents were asked to indicate the number of articles for which they were the sole or primary author and the number for which they were listed as contributing authors. The same information was sought related to book reviews, newsletters, workbooks, and instructional programs. The respondents were asked to indicate the number of journal articles that were reports of research findings, descriptive reports regarding projects, testimonials, editorials, and review articles.

The respondents were asked to indicate the number of formal papers they had presented within the last three years at national and state meetings, continuing education programs, and invited workshops. The instrument included questions about the respondents' funded and unfunded research activities and about their grants and contracts received to date. The respondents were asked their opinions regarding the importance of scholarship in their institutions' academic promotion criteria and to indicate which factors encourage and discourage their research and publishing endeavors. The encouraging factors listed on the survey were promotion opportunities, salary increases, administrative pressure, library resources, disciplinary prestige, computer technology, basic interest in research, academic preparation, and funding. The discouraging factors were heavy teaching loads; administrative responsibilities; and lack of academic preparation, funding, interest, rewards, library resources, computer technology, writing ability, and secretarial assistance. The respondents were asked to check all of the factors that applied to them.

The survey items were derived from questions and concerns of prior research on faculty scholarship and research productivity.1-17 Content validity and reliability of the instrument were examined through a pilot study performed by a panel of 20 allied health faculty members who were considered by the investigators to be scholarly productive and who had expertise in questionnaire design. The panel evaluated the appropriateness of the questions in eliciting the intended information. The investigators used the panel's responses to determine whether the questions consistently conveyed the same meaning to each panel member. Based on their comments and suggestions, some of the items were revised prior to the formal study.

Data Analysis

Descriptive statistics were used to compute means, standard deviations, and percentages. To obtain a yearly or average scholarly productivity rate, the mean number of authorships of refereed journal articles was divided by the mean number of years of experience in higher education for the total number of respondents. This measure of productivity was also made for respondents in each academic rank.

Results

In late 1986 and early 1987, the instrument was mailed to the 130 physical therapy faculty members. After a second mailing to nonrespondents, the total number of physical therapy respondents was 127, for an overall return rate of 97.6%. Table 1 provides information regarding the biographical characteristics of the respondents as a group and by academic rank. Sixty-three percent of the respondents were female with an average age of 41 years and a mean of nine years of experience in higher education. All but four of the respondents held academic rank at their institutions, but only 38% were tenured. Eighty-seven percent had at least a master's degree, with 29% having doctorates.

The 127 physical therapy faculty members who participated in the present study represented 16.2% of the total sample of allied health faculty respondents employed in the participating schools. The physical therapy faculty respondents were the same mean years of age as the allied health faculty in the total group. However, a larger percentage of the physical therapists were female (63% vs 56%), and smaller percentages of the physical therapists had doctoral degrees (29% vs 42%) or were tenured faculty (38% vs 41%) compared with the allied health faculty as a group. The physical therapists' mean number of nine years of experience in higher education was one year less than the average for the total sample of allied health faculty,4 Table 2 provides information regarding the respondents' career publications in refereed journals. As a group, 57% of the respondents were the sole or first author of at least one article that had been published in a refereed journal. The mean number of sole- or first-author journal publications for all respondents was 2.88 (range = 1-33 articles; median = 1 article). The total number of respondents who had been contributing authors of multiple-author journal articles was 59 (48%). The mean number of articles for these authors was 2.77. The overall productivity rate for all respondents was approximately one published journal article (0.94) for every two years of employment in higher education. Thirty percent of the respondents had not been listed as an author on any journal article. Within the total group of respondents, full professors were the most productive as authors of refereed journal articles. All but one (94%) of the responding professors have been the sole or first author of at least one refereed journal article, with a mean of 9.88 published papers for this group of authors (range = 1-33 articles). Seventy-six percent of the full professors reported that they had been contributing authors of multiple-author journal articles, with a mean of 3.18 articles for all respondents in this group. Overall, the productivity rate for responding full professors was about one journal article (0.69) per year of employment in higher education. Associate professors were the sole or first authors of refereed journal articles at the rate of 2.84 papers per respondent. The mean productivity rate for the responding associate professors was one journal article for every three years of employment in higher education. Seven associate professors (18%) reported having no journal authorships.

Assistant professors were the sole or first author of 1.84 refereed journal articles on the average, with a range of one to seven primary authorships. The average productivity rate for assistant professors was roughly one journal article (0.92) every two years, a rate higher than that of associate professors. Fifteen assistant professors (29%) reported no journal authorships. For the responding instructors who were sole or primary authors of refereed journal articles, the mean number of articles was 3.1. The average productivity rate for instructors was one article per year of faculty experience. Thirteen of the instructors (76%) had not been listed as an author on any journal articles.

Of the published journal articles, 59% reported the results of various types of research studies, 16% disseminated information about programs and projects, and 20% constituted literature reviews. These findings were comparable across the academic ranks.

Twenty of the respondents (15.7%) currently hold, or have held, appointments on editorial boards for professional journals. The mean number of editorial board appointments for those who had held at least one appointment was 1.45. The majority (75%) of these appointments were held by full and associate professors. Smaller percentages of respondents reported that they had authored chapters in books 16%), book reviews (26%), monographs (16%), and newsletter articles (16%). Professors were the most active in publishing book reviews, averaging 5.71 reviews per professor. Twenty respondents (15.7%) reported that they had not been listed as an author of any journal article, book, chapter in a book, or other types of publications. Forty-two percent of all of the respondents reported that they had presented at least one formal paper at a national meeting within the last three calendar years. The mean number of presentations for the presenters was 2.29. Forty-seven percent of the full professors and 53% of the associate professors had presented an average of 4.46 and 2.65 papers, respectively, at national meetings during the last three years. Twenty-eight percent of the respondents had presented an average of 1.78 papers at state meetings. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents averaged 2.81 formal presentations at continuing education programs, and 32% had participated in invited workshops.

Forty-nine percent of the respondents participating in research activities reported that they were primarily engaged in clinical research activities. Interestingly, a higher percentage of assistant professors (59%) were involved in clinical research than were respondents in the other ranks (professors, 35%, associate professors, 45%; instructors, 47%). Many of the clinical research efforts of professors (67%) and associate professors (41%) were extramurally funded. A majority of the respondents (52%) reported that they were involved in collaborative research with faculty in other disciplines at their own institutions or at outside institutions.

With the exception of the responding full and associate professors, only small percentages of the respondents in the other academic ranks had ever served as the principal investigator or project director of a federal, state, or private grant. For the full professors, 76% had directed an average of 4.15 federal grants, 47% had directed an average of 1.75 state-supported grants, and 35% had received an average of 1.67 private grants. Fifty-one percent of the responding associate professors indicated that they had received an average of 1.58 federal grants, and 11% reported having directed an average of 1.75 private grants. Three of the responding assistant professors and two instructors reported having directed grants from various sources. The only factor the majority of respondents (62%) indicated that encouraged and assisted them in scholarly activities was their own academic preparation. Other factors reported as encouraging by the respondents were promotion opportunities (40%) and disciplinary prestige (41%). Factors cited as most discouraging in the respondents' pursuit of scholarly activities were heavy teaching loads 65%), administrative responsibilities 55%), and lack of funding (44%). The primary discouraging factor for associate professors 68%), assistant professors 78%), and instructors (53%) was heavy teaching loads.

Thirty-eight percent of the respondents believed that scholarly activities were the major consideration for academic promotion at their institutions. An additional 52% indicated that evidence of scholarly activity was necessary but was considered only a component of promotion considerations. None of the respondents thought scholarship was an unimportant factor in promotion. These perceptions were comparable across the academic ranks. A majority of the respondents (91%) believed that the need to publish in order to receive an academic promotion will continue to increase in importance over the next decade. These results were also comparable across all academic ranks. Assuming that the faculty respondents in the present study are not grossly different from the national sample of faculty who participated in the 1983 APTA survey, the proportion of physical therapy faculty with doctoral degrees, tenure, and more senior rank appears to have increased somewhat over the period of 1983 to 1987 (Tab. 3). Additionally, 27 of 37 doctorally prepared faculty (73%) and 27 of 74 master's-prepared faculty (36%) responding to the 1987 study reported having authored three or more journal articles. This finding represents a substantial increase in scholarly productivity of this group of physical therapy faculty as compared with faculty who participated in the 1983 APTA study. The APTA study found that 60.7% of the doctorally prepared faculty and 16.3% of the master's-prepared faculty had published three or more papers.3

Discussion

This study was limited to physical therapy faculty who were employed in 19 schools of allied health in south-eastern academic health centers and thus may not be representative of physical therapy faculty nationally. This limitation and those associated with survey data generally are acknowledged by the investigators. Because the survey instrument generated primarily self-reported data, we assumed that the respondents in this study were honest and competent. Furthermore, a large percentage of the respondents had little or no scholarly production; therefore, the results do not represent only those faculty who are accomplished scholars. The majority of all the physical therapy faculty in this study singled out their own academic preparation as providing major encouragement and assistance in scholarly activities. This perception has been repeatedly borne out and validated by data showing higher productivity levels for doctoral prepared physical therapy faculty.[3] Thus, the continuing growth in the proportion of doctorally prepared physical therapists should, in turn, lead to future data reflecting improved scholarly productivity for the aggregate.

Data from this regional study suggest progress toward accomplishing the APTA outcome goal for 1997 of a 60% doctorally prepared faculty population. Even so, will the level of scholarly productivity plateau when a specific proportional threshold of doctorally prepared faculty is reached? If so, untested innovations and renewed efforts to boost scholarly activity may be required. Faculty teaching loads were identified as the most discouraging factor in the pursuit of scholarly activities. This finding was contradictory to evidence supporting the conclusion that average teaching loads for physical therapy faculty are comparable to the usual academic standards.3 Either selected aspects of physical therapy faculty teaching loads are not being adequately considered or physical therapy faculty may not be fully cognizant of the teaching demands in other disciplines. Another explanation may relate to the larger number of laboratory classes typical of physical therapy teaching loads. Laboratory classes consume more clock hours, yet do not yield commensurate credit-hour production.

Implications

Across the period of 1983 to 1987, physical therapy faculty appear to have made steady progress in scholarly productivity, as reflected in the larger proportion of faculty with doctoral degrees and tenure status, the increased proportion of faculty at the senior academic ranks, and the higher percentage of both master's- and doctorally prepared faculty reporting three or more journal article authorships. However, faculty development programs to further increase scholarly activity appear to be warranted. In order to be effective, developers of faculty programs should consider those characteristics of successful researchers identified by others.[11-12,17] Bland and Schmitz concluded that 1) clear expectations regarding scholarly activities should be mutually set, 2) research and publishing productivity should be rewarded, 3) heads of departments should assist junior faculty in finding suitable collaborators, and 4) researchers should be provided tangible evidence of support such as budgeted research time of at least 20%.[17]

In implementing faculty-development programs, caution is urged to protect the integrity of instructional programs by compensating for released time for research with adequate adjustments in teaching loads and avoiding the haste to achieve an absolute increase in the number of publications that can lead to mediocre research. These factors notwithstanding, physical therapy, administrators and faculty must work toward greater involvement by faculty in research activities and subsequently increased levels of scholarly productivity.

A large percentage (52%) of the physical therapy faculty who responded to the present study indicated participation in collaborative research. Allied health schools have many unique opportunities for such collaboration. Faculty should fully exploit cooperative opportunities, and administrators at departmental and college levels should do more to foster and create new opportunities for sharing of research activities. Effort should be made to match grant and contract announcements with faculty interests and to link faculty interests across allied health disciplines. Much untapped potential exists for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary health professions research. To fully realize this potential, however, more effective leadership is required at every level-faculty, department, and college.

Conclusion

The activities of physical therapy faculty are primarily through authorship of refereed journal articles and presentations at professional meetings. Although modest gains in scholarly production have been made since 1983, physical therapy faculty are concerned about the impact that heavy teaching loads and administrative responsibilities have on their ability to conduct research and publish the results. Physical therapy faculty and administrators must seek ways to increase faculty involvement in research while balancing other academic responsibilities in order to promote increased scholarly production.

References

1 The Plan to Address the Faculty Shortage in Physical Therapy Education. Alexandria, VA, American Physical Therapy Association, September 1985

2 Physical Therapy Program Directors 1982 Survey. Alexandria, VA, American Physical Therapy Association, March 1983

3 Physical Therapy Faculty 1983 Survey. Alexandria, VA, American Physical Therapy Association, 1984

4 Holcomb JD, Roush RE: A study of the scholarly activities of allied health faculty in southern academic health centers. j Allied Health 17:277-293, 1988

5 Holcomb JD, Roush RE: Faculty appointments, promotions, and tenure policies in the allied health professions. J Allied Health 6:2427, 1977

6 Conine TA, Shilling LM, Pierce ER: The relative importance of supportive data for promotion and tenure reviews. J Allied Health 14:183-190, 1985

7 Broski DC, Olson RE, Savage AA; Increasing research productivity, in university-based colleges of allied health, J Allied Health 14:160162, 1985

8 Covey PC, Burke JE: Commentary: Research and the mission of schools of allied health. J Allied Health 16:1-5, 1987

9 Bruhn JG: Commentary: The changing limits of professionalism in allied health. J Allied Health 16:111 118, 1987

10 Boyer EL: College: The Undergraduate Experience in America. New York, NY, Harper & Row, Publishers Inc, 1987

11 Blackburn RT: Academic careers: Patterns and possibilities. Current Issues in Higher Education 2:2@27, 1979

12 Pelz DC, Andrews FM: Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development. New York, NY, John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1966

13 Onuoha AR: Demographic characteristics of educators in physical and occupational therapy programs in Canadian universities. Physiotherapy Canada 32:331-334, 1980

14 Walker JM, Everett 1,E, Evans PR: Profile of physical therapy educators in five countries. Phys Ther 63:1127-1133, 1983

15 Flanigan KS, Ballinger PW, Grant HK, et al: Research productivity profile of allied health faculty. J Allied Health 17:87-100, 1988

16 Waller KV, Jordan L, Gierhart J, et al: Research skills and the research environment: A needs assessment of allied health faculty. J Allied Health 17:101-114, 1988

17 Bland CJ, Schmitz CC: Characteristics of successful researchers and implications for faculty development. J Med Educ 61:22-31, 1986