Research productivity of doctor of physical therapy faculty promoted in the southeastern United States

Abstract

Background: Little information exists on the research productivity of successfully promoted tenure-track Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) faculty. Objective: To determine the research productivity that typically results in successful promotion. Design: We collected publicly available curriculum vitae (CVs) from faculty currently in accredited DPT programs and who had been successfully promoted from an institution in the southeastern USA from 2000 through 2016.Total publication count, journal impact factor, funding, citations, and other metrics were analysed from 45 subjects of 22 of the 64 CAPTE-accredited DPT programs in the southeast. Results: None of the studied metrics were normally distributed with time to promotion as determined by a Shapiro-Wilk test. These faculty exhibited a median publication count of 4, range 0 to 43; median of average citation count of 12.4, range 0 to 87.25; median of average journal impact factor of 2.866, range 0 to 6.280; median external funding received of $9910, range $0.00 to $19 543 198; and median author h-index of 3, range 0 to 17. The median number of years before promotion was 6, ranging from 3 to 13 years. Linear regression analysis indicates a poor fit with no significant correlation between years before promotion and any of the studied metrics. No correlation between journal impact factor and number of citations was observed (m = −0.22, p = 0.728, R2 = 0.0003). Prior to promotion 31% (14 of 45) did not receive external funding and 24% (11 of 45) had a 0 h-index. The Carnegie Classification of the institution did not significantly correlate with research productivity metrics in this dataset (p = 0.213). Conclusion: While faculty unsuccessful in promotion were not identifiable using this method, this research can be used by faculty and committees to evaluate research productivity against regional data and promote competitive standards with peer institutions. Abbreviations: CAPTE: Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapist Education; DPT: Doctor of Physical Therapy

Research productivity of Doctor of Physical Therapy faculty promoted in the Western United States

“…In this study, publicly available curriculum vitae harvested directly from institutional faculty web pages were used to collect data on faculty research productivity. This method has been used previously in the literature (Barnard-Brak et al 2011), and has been found to be consistent with data obtained through self-reporting surveys (Kaufman 2009;Littman et al 2017;Holcomb et al 1990). In order to distinguish barriers to academic research productivity surrounding economic factors related to institutional location, this study uses the regional breakdown of the United States as defined by the Bureau of Economic Analysis which specifically identifies regional variations in production, personal income, and real property assets.…”

“…The data is reported here in a style similar to that published previously (Littman et al 2017) in order to aid in direct comparison between the regions. As described in Table 1, the median publication count for DPT faculty promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor in the Western region was 3 with an average of 5.4 (5.5) with a range of 0 to 18 publications.…”

“…Methods used were similar to those previously published (Littman et al 2017). Briefly, data were collected from institutionally-linked, publicly available curriculum vitae (CV) of tenure-track (non-clinical) DPT professors currently employed at a CAPTE accredited DPT program and who earned promotion from the years 2000 through 2016 at a university located in the Western United States.…”

“…Here we attempt to identify a standard for research productivity of physical therapist educators who have attained promotion in CAPTE (Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapist Education) accredited DPT programs and departments during the year 2000 through 2016 in the western region of the United States. Previous studies of different regions have identified no significant correlations between a variety of research productivity measures and the ultimate attainment of tenure, strongly suggesting that promotion and tenure committees take into account factors other than sheer cut-offs in research metrics for determining promotion (Littman et al 2017) and tenure. Furthermore, previous studies have indicated that the Carnegie classification of the faculty member's institution did not significantly correlate with the metrics of faculty members promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (Littman et al 2017).…”

“…Previous studies of different regions have identified no significant correlations between a variety of research productivity measures and the ultimate attainment of tenure, strongly suggesting that promotion and tenure committees take into account factors other than sheer cut-offs in research metrics for determining promotion (Littman et al 2017) and tenure. Furthermore, previous studies have indicated that the Carnegie classification of the faculty member's institution did not significantly correlate with the metrics of faculty members promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (Littman et al 2017). Carnegie Classification is a widely accepted framework for describing institutional research and educational capacity.…”