What Should I Be Doing, and Where Are They Doing It? Scholarly Productivity of Academic Psychologists.

PE R SP EC TI V ES O N P SY CH O L O G I CA L S CI E N CE

Special Section: Doing Psychological Science

What Should I Be Doing, and Where Are They Doing It? Scholarly Productivity of Academic Psychologists Stephen Joy Albertus Magnus College ABSTRACT—Scholarly

productivity is used to index faculty achievement, but normative data on publication rates among academic psychologists are scarce. This article presents the results of a study of 1,216 faculty members from 96 schools, ranging from elite research universities to minor undergraduate colleges. As expected, faculty members at research universities publish the most, followed by those at elite 4-year schools and other doctoral institutions. Institutional prestige has little effect on productivity, except that elite universities employ a greater proportion of truly eminent scholars than other schools do. The fact that many of these scholars are hired by elite schools after achieving eminence elsewhere suggests that financial prowess, rather than institutional climate, produces the latter effect. Academics at all of these types of schools tend to continue publishing throughout their careers; achieving tenure has little effect on their subsequent scholarship. Faculty members at master’s universities and lesser 4-year schools publish less than others and tend to cease publication activity after about 10 years, presumably upon receiving tenure. Males tend to publish more than females during the initial push for tenure, but not thereafter; females, unlike males, tend to increase their publication rates as they mature professionally. A subset of highly productive males who are moving toward more prestigious types of schools accounts for much of the remaining gender difference. The number of predoctoral publications is a relatively weak predictor of postdoctoral scholarship.

Address correspondence to Stephen Joy, Department of Psychology, Albertus Magnus College, 700 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511, e-mail: [email protected].

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Scholarly productivity is an important determinant of academic success, utilized in crucial personnel decisions such as hiring, promotion, and awarding tenure, as well as in determining an academic’s prestige among disciplinary peers. Typically, productivity is measured in terms of publications in peer-reviewed journals or other competitive venues, though some weight also may be assigned to works meeting less stringent standards (e.g., conference presentations) or rising to still higher levels (e.g., frequent citation). In addition, the scholarly productivity of a department may contribute to resource allocation within the institution to which it belongs, as well as to overall institutional prestige. Given this practical importance, one would expect a substantial body of empirical literature outlining standards for scholarship in the behavioral sciences, where appropriate methodological expertise abounds. Yet such data are surprisingly scanty, especially when it comes to data concerning individual faculty members. Research on department-level productivity is more common, with publication data generally estimated using one of three strategies. One approach is to peruse selected journals in a specialty, using author affiliations to identify and rank programs in that field. For example, deMeuse (1987) used the Journal of Applied Psychology to rate faculty quality at 39 doctoral programs in industrial-organizational psychology. Similar studies have been conducted for faculties in school psychology (Levinson, Barker, & Lillenstein, 1994), social work (Ligon & Thyer, 2001), and educational psychology (Smith et al., 2003). One of the most ambitious (Howard, Cole, & Maxwell, 1987) examined all 13 journals then published by the American Psychological Association for a 10-year period, rating departments for total contributions and productivity controlling for department size. A problem with this approach is its reliance on a narrow, potentially biased,

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measure of productivity. Unless the journals sampled are truly representative of all work done in a field, the record may be badly distorted. Nor do these findings shed much light on individual scholarship, which generally is spread across multiple outlets. A second approach begins with a sample of academics and surveys them (or department chairs) as to their scholarly activities. This strategy has the advantage of including all relevant publications, though the possibility of systematic differences between responders and nonresponders is an issue. More problematic is a lack of quality control with respect to what counts as a scholarly publication. Decidedly minor works (e.g., newsletter columns) are likely to be included by some faculty members, inflating productivity estimates. Studies of this kind have sampled faculty in counseling and counseling psychology (Liddle, Westergren, & Duke, 1997; Royalty & Magoon, 1985) and rehabilitation counseling (Bieschke, Herbert, & Bard, 1998), as well as psychologists in medical schools (Holden & Black, 1996) and all Ph.D.s in Canadian medical schools (Atkinson & el-Guebaly, 1996). The third approach utilizes a data set such as the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). This strategy eliminates the problem of differential response rates and controls for scholarly quality, because only publications meeting standards for inclusion in the database are tabulated. However, given that such data sets are incomplete, the figures tend to underestimate scholarly output. This approach has been taken in studies of faculty in a range of doctoral programs (Jones, Lindzey, & Coggeshall, 1982), as well as in specific fields such as social work (Thyer & Polk, 1997) and developmental psychology (Byrnes & McNamara, 2001). Unfortunately, many studies concerned with program or department evaluation provide no data on individual output or survey only selected journals (e.g., Cox & Catt, 1977; Howard et al., 1987; Keith & Babchuk, 1998; Ligon & Thyer, 2001; Schmauder, Robinson, & Hartley, 1999; Smith et al., 2003; Webster, Hall, & Bolen, 1993). However, in some cases, data on individual productivity can be extracted from the published reports. Perhaps the most comprehensive study of faculty productivity (Jones et al., 1982) covered 32 disciplines, including psychology, at Ph.D.-granting institutions nationwide. Unfortunately, these data are now a quarter-century old, but they retain interest. Almost all (k 5 150) psychology programs awarding doctoral degrees during the late 1970s were surveyed. Mean faculty size was 29, implying an N of 4,350 academic psychologists. Among the variables considered was the number of articles published by faculty of each program from 1978 through 1980 (extracted from the SSCI). Because some psychologists (neuroscientists) publish extensively in venues not covered by the SSCI, the authors also collected data from the Science Citation Index (SCI) for 1978 and 1979, though these findings appeared only in an appendix.

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Across the 3 years sampled, the mean number of publications per program was 81, from which one can calculate a mean of 0.93 publications per faculty member per year. If SCI data are added, the mean rises to 1.21. These findings are roughly comparable with those of Pasework, Fitzgerald, and Sawyer (1975), who reported that experimental psychologists published a mean of 1.48 pieces per year. Three more recent studies also provide useful information. Tien and Blackburn (1996) analyzed data from a 1989 national survey of faculty in doctoral- and master’s-level universities, including 112 psychologists who reported publication totals for the 2 years preceding the survey. The average number of publications per year was 1.83 for assistant professors, 1.79 for associate professors, and 2.27 for full professors. Byrnes and McNamara (2001) sampled 802 faculty members in developmental-sciences graduate programs, using the SSCI to identify publications over a 7-year period. Assistant professors had produced a mean of 0.81 publications per year; associate professors, 1.19; and full professors, 2.31. Finally, Fennell and Kohout (2002) attempted to survey all graduate programs in psychology and related fields on a variety of topics, including publications during the 1999–2000 academic year. Although only about a third of the programs provided data on faculty activities, limiting generalizability of the findings, the sample still comprised 3,981 faculty members. Among those affiliated with doctoral programs, the median number of publications was 2.5 (interquartile range 5 1.6–4.3); at master’s-level institutions, the median was 1.5 (interquartile range 5 0.8–2.6). The substantial difference in scholarly output between faculties at doctoral- and master’s-level universities was consistent with earlier findings (Levinson et al., 1994). In reviewing these findings, one is struck more by discrepancies than by commonalities. A contributing factor is doubtless the methodological differences: whether only doctoral or both doctoral and master’s universities were sampled, whether psychology as a whole or particular specialties was studied, whether results were broken down by rank, and whether publications were counted using a database like the SSCI (underestimating scholarly productivity) or faculty surveys (probably overestimating productivity). This last difference may explain why in a study using the SSCI (Byrnes & McNamara, 2001), 72% of all publications were journal articles, whereas in one using a survey (Fennell & Kohout, 2002), journal articles accounted for only 60% of the total. One also may note that the lowest productivity estimates come from the 1970s, with generally higher rates reported in the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps scholarly productivity has increased. Two studies of this issue, however, yielded contradictory findings. Bieber and Blackburn (1993) reported mean publication rates of 1.66 in 1972, 1.82 in 1980, and 2.07 in 1988, suggesting a moderate upward trend. However, Lee (2000) examined the publication records of new Ph.D.s in experimental psychology from 1965 through 1995. Publications during the 3 years

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Productivity of Academic Psychologists

preceding the doctorate, the year of the award, and the following year were tabulated using the SSCI. The mean number of publications did not change systematically from the 1960s through the 1990s, usually hovering close to the grand mean of 1.28, with about 54% of new Ph.D.s having published. It may be noted that individuals who obtain faculty positions at research universities often publish more than others; in one small study, new Ph.D.s hired as assistant professors by research universities averaged 4 publications, including 3 journal articles, whereas individuals hired after a few years’ postdoctoral experience averaged 6.4 publications, including 5.4 journal articles (Gore, Murdock, & Haley, 1998). Another issue concerns possible gender differences. The traditional view has been that male academics tend to publish more than do their female counterparts, but the scale and nature of this effect are in doubt. For example, Xie and Shauman (1998) analyzed data from several large, nationally representative samples and found that the supposed gender gap in publication rates declined markedly from the late 1960s (when female rates were only 60% of those of males) to the early 1990s (close to 80%). Equally important, much of the remaining gap in the early 1990s could be accounted for by employment status (i.e., type of institution) and demographic variables. Similarly, Black and Holden (1998) found that male and female psychologists on medical-school faculties published at similar rates after career age was controlled. The issue, then, is not altogether resolved. Some controversy also obtains as to the degree to which scholarship is associated with departmental prestige. Two studies (deMeuse, 1987; Howard et al., 1987) reported strong correlations between research productivity and independent ratings of program quality or prestige. However, two studies of sociology departments suggested that other factors had a stronger association with prestige. General institutional prestige and past departmental reputation outweighed recent scholarly output in one (Keith & Babchuk, 1998); another found that social exchange networks defined by hiring one another’s recent Ph.D.s explained more variance in prestige ratings than did scholarly output (Burris, 2003). However, if departmental prestige is a function of scholarly achievement, current publication activity remains only one factor. Faculty who made distinguished contributions in the past still enhance departmental prestige, and one would expect some delay between a change in scholarly activity and a resulting shift in peer perceptions. Cox and Catt (1977, p. 813) termed this phenomenon ‘‘reputational lag.’’ In addition, all the relevant correlations in these two studies were quite strong. Keith and Babchuk (1998), for example, reported correlations between publications and reputation that ranged from .72 to .78, whereas correlations between current and prior reputation ranged from .86 to .91. This article presents new data on publication activity among academic psychologists. This study, in addition to updating our knowledge of faculty productivity, offers several advantages relative to its predecessors. The sample was not limited to se-

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lected subfields, nor did the study rely on the vagaries of survey response rates; it included all members of the psychology departments sampled and only members of those departments. It included many types of higher-education institutions, not only one or two types of schools. Rather than sampling only a few journals or relying on participants’ varying judgments as to what constitutes a worthwhile publication, it included all journal articles and other publications listed by the widely used PsycINFO database. Finally, rather than sampling a narrow time span, it covered the entire academic careers to date of all sample members. This study was intended to provide answers to a number of research questions, some purely practical, others possessing a measure of theoretical interest: What constitutes a normative record of scholarship for an academic psychologist, both annually and over the course of a career? Closely related is the issue of what constitutes a normative scholarly trajectory (Simonton, 1999) as an academic career matures. A subissue is the impact of tenure on subsequent productivity. In the present study, this subissue could be addressed only approximately, absent the exact year in which tenure was awarded, but it was possible to test the ‘‘tenure cliff’’ hypothesis (that scholarship largely ends upon receipt of tenure). How well does scholarly productivity at one stage of the academic career correlate with that at other stages? If productivity levels stabilize, when does this occur? A subissue is how well predoctoral publications predict subsequent scholarly productivity—an important question because graduate-school publications are considered in selecting junior faculty members. To what extent does scholarly productivity vary as a function of the type of institution at which an academic psychologist is employed? (It would, of course, be shocking not to find significant differences across widely disparate types of schools. It is of greater interest to quantify these differences.) Insofar as significant differences obtain across types of institutions, the preceding issues need to be considered separately for each homogeneous group. Assuming that some types of schools employ a higher proportion of eminent (i.e., highly productive) researchers than others, what is the provenance of these eminent academics? That is, to what extent do certain types of schools foster a climate that facilitates scholarship and so cultivates talented individuals, and to what extent do schools exercise financial muscle to wrest already eminent researchers away from less affluent institutions? Have standards for scholarly productivity changed over the past several decades? In particular, are psychology faculty members (or aspiring academics) today expected to publish more than was the case in previous generations? (This common topic of conversation may be termed the rising-productivity hypothesis.)


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To what extent does scholarly output vary by gender, and to what extent is any gender gap reduced by controlling for career age and institution type? Prior research suggests that males tend to publish more than females, but that these two variables moderate the apparent gender effect to some degree. METHOD

Sample The goal was to assemble a large sample of psychology faculty at institutions of various types, and to sample at least 100 individuals in each institution type. The 2000 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classification system (www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp) was used as a starting point. The eight categories are as follows: 1. Doctoral/Research Universities–Extensive (n 5 151 institutions). These schools award a wide range of degrees at all levels, including at least 50 doctoral degrees per year across at least 15 disciplines. The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) category ‘‘Research University’’ corresponds closely to this classification. 2. Doctoral/Research Universities–Intensive (n 5 110). These schools award either 10 or more doctoral degrees across 3 or more disciplines or 20 or more doctoral degrees annually, but do not meet criteria for Category 1. The NCES category ‘‘Other Doctoral Institution’’ is approximately equivalent. 3. Master’s Colleges and Universities I (n 5 496). These schools award at least 40 master’s degrees per year across 3 or more disciplines, but offer few or no doctoral programs. The NCES category ‘‘Comprehensive Institution’’ corresponds to this and the next Carnegie category. 4. Master’s Colleges and Universities II (n 5 115). These schools award at least 20 master’s degrees per year, but do not meet criteria for Category 3. (This group was omitted in the present study.) 5. Baccalaureate Colleges–Liberal Arts (n 5 228). These primarily undergraduate colleges award at least half their baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts disciplines. Most are also known as ‘‘nationally ranked’’ colleges. The NCES category ‘‘Private Liberal Arts College’’ is the closest equivalent to this and the next Carnegie category combined, though it obviously excludes public institutions, which the Carnegie categories include. 6. Baccalaureate Colleges–General (n 5 321). These primarily undergraduate colleges award fewer than half their baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts disciplines; their students tend to major in business or other applied fields. Most are also thought of as ‘‘regional’’ colleges and have reputations largely limited to the home state and its immediate neighbors. 7. Baccalaureate/Associate’s Colleges (n 5 57). These primarily 2-year colleges award at least 10% of their degrees at the baccalaureate level. (They were omitted in this study.)

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8. Associate’s Colleges (n 5 1,669). These are almost entirely 2-year colleges; any bachelor’s degrees account for fewer than 10% of all degrees awarded. The closest NCES equivalent, ‘‘Public Two-Year Colleges,’’ excludes private junior colleges. In addition to classifying schools by type, it is important to take institutional quality into account. Substantial differences obtain across schools within each category, and these differences may affect the research productivity of faculty. One of the more ambitious (and widely known) efforts to rank colleges and universities by quality is the annual survey prepared by U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News). The U.S. News college rankings organize higher-education institutions into four groups based on the first six Carnegie categories. National Universities (n 5 248 in 2004) comprise both groups of doctoral institutions; Universities–Master’s (n 5 573) comprise both groups of master’s colleges and universities; Liberal Arts Colleges (n 5 217) and Comprehensive Colleges–Bachelor’s (n 5 324) correspond with Carnegie Categories 5 and 6, respectively. Quality indicators in the U.S. News rankings include peer assessment, student selectivity, faculty resources, student retention and graduation rates, and financial resources. Although not above reproach, the survey clearly strives to take various relevant factors into account. It is probably fair to say that although nearly every school is critical of the U.S. News rankings, nearly every school also awaits their publication anxiously and hopes to advance up the ranks. In this study, U.S. News ratings were used to approximate institutional prestige within broad categories. Representative institutions were identified using Carnegie listings and U.S. News 2004 college rankings (U.S. News, 2003). They were arrayed into 10 categories (see the appendix for a complete list), number-coded as follows: 1. Elite research universities (e.g., Princeton University, Brown University): These 4 Doctoral/Research Universities–Extensive were identified as elite on the basis of their inclusion in the top 25 National Universities by U.S. News. 2. Strong research universities (e.g., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Syracuse University): These 6 Doctoral/Research Universities–Extensive received U.S. News rankings in the range from 51 to 100. 3. Other research universities (e.g., University of Maine at Orono, Northeastern University): These 4 Doctoral/Research Universities–Extensive were ranked below 100 by U.S. News. 4. Other doctoral institutions (e.g., St. John’s University, Widener University): These 7 Doctoral/Research Universities–Intensive operate at least one doctoral program in psychology, typically a practitioner-oriented program. U.S. News ranks them in Tiers 3 and 4 of National Universities. 5. Elite liberal arts colleges (e.g., Wellesley College, Hamilton College): These 11 schools qualified as elite on the basis of


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6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

their inclusion by U.S. News in the top 25 nationally ranked Liberal Arts Colleges. Strong master’s universities (e.g., Villanova University, Providence College): These 13 Master’s Colleges and Universities I in the Carnegie system were in the top tier of the U.S. News rankings of Universities–Master’s. Strong 4-year colleges (e.g., Allegheny College, Hampshire College, Stonehill College): These 16 schools are primarily nationally ranked liberal arts colleges (but not in the top 50 per U.S. News); 2 are very highly ranked regional institutions. Other master’s universities (e.g., Kutztown University, University of New Haven): These 9 schools were listed in Tiers 3 and 4 of Universities–Master’s by U.S. News. Other 4-year colleges (e.g., Curry College, Felician College): These 16 schools were drawn from Tiers 3 and 4 of the U.S. News rankings of regional baccalaureate institutions. Two-year colleges (or community-college systems; e.g., Mohawk Valley Community College, Housatonic Community College): Ten schools in this category were selected.

Thus, 96 institutions were included: 21 doctoral-level, 22 master’s-level, 43 bachelor’s-level, and 10 associate’s-level. All are situated in the northeastern United States because I was more familiar with this region and could exercise judgment to exclude schools whose Carnegie classification might not be an accurate reflection of their nature. Two-year schools were intentionally underrepresented, as little original scholarship was expected from their faculties. Leaving them aside, the sample included approximately 6.1% of all colleges and universities in the United States. Psychology faculty members were identified using school or departmental Web pages. All full-time faculty members holding primary appointments in psychology departments were included. Rank, highest degree, and gender were noted if available. Data were collected during the spring and summer of 2004. It was difficult to identify 100 individuals in each of the last two categories of schools, and eventually a smaller number was accepted. Most of these schools have very small faculties, and some do not identify faculty members (or their fields, degrees, or both) on their home pages. Otherwise, the goal of at least 100 individuals per category was achieved. A total of 1,216 faculty members were identified: 399 (32.8%) were affiliated with research universities, 162 (13.3%) with other doctoral institutions, 276 (22.7%) with master’s-level universities, 304 (25.0%) with liberal arts colleges, and 69 (5.7%) with 2-year schools. (These figures exclude 6 individuals for whom further data were unobtainable.) The sample was 55.3% male and 43.6% female. Males tended to be farther into their postdoctoral careers than females (22.45 12.23 years vs. 15.92 10.22 years), t(1095) 5 9.37, p < .001. Faculty rank was available for 919 individuals; 42.7% were full professors, 27.2% were associate

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professors, 27.4% were assistant professors, and 2.7% were instructors or lecturers. These figures may be compared with national data in the Digest of Educational Statistics (NCES, 2001). Nationwide, there are about 20,000 full-time members of psychology departments, of whom 62.2% are male and 37.8% are female (p. 280, Table 235). The present sample, then, comprises about 6.1% of the population in question and slightly overrepresents women. The Digest of Educational Statistics also indicates that among full-time social sciences faculty as a group, 38.8% are full professors, 24.0% are associate professors, 22.6% are assistant professors, and 8.1% are lecturers or instructors (6.5% are unranked; p. 276, Table 232). Once again, the present sample provides a fairly good match to the population. Data on the types of institutions with which full-time faculty members are affiliated are available only for all disciplines combined. Altogether, 31.6% of faculty members are with research universities, 14.1% are with other doctoral institutions, 21.6% are with master’s universities, 8.6% are with private liberal arts colleges, 18.2% are with public 2-year colleges, and 6.2% are with ‘‘other’’ types of schools. The present sample underrepresents 2-year schools; 4-year colleges were oversampled intentionally in order to provide adequate power for statistical analyses. Otherwise, the sample closely resembles the larger population. Table 1 provides a more detailed breakdown of the sample. The various types of institutions were not homogeneous with respect to gender ratio or the proportion of faculty occupying each rank. It is likely that these differences reflect genuine population parameters. Research and other doctoral institutions employ a preponderance of male faculty, whereas most faculty members at 4-year colleges are female. A narrow majority of faculty members at research universities are full professors (especially at the more prestigious schools), but about a third of faculty members at 4-year colleges are full professors. Typically, a quarter to a third of faculty members are associate professors, and a similar proportion are assistant professors. The exception is elite research universities, which employ few associate professors, perhaps because they do not award tenure upon promotion to associate-professor rank; individuals who are unable to achieve full-professor rank ultimately must leave. Instructors are found primarily at 4-year schools.

Procedure The PsycINFO database was searched for works written by each faculty member. This database abstracts approximately 2,000 journals in psychology-related fields. It also includes many authored books and chapters in edited books. The database consists of approximately 78% journal articles, 7% book chapters, 3% authored books, and 12% dissertations. If only published materials are considered, PsycINFO comprises 88.6% journal articles and 11.4% books and book chapters.


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TABLE 1 Gender and Rank Distributions in the Sample Rank Institution type Elite research university (n 5 101) Strong research university (n 5 191) Other research university (n 5 108) Other doctoral institution (n 5 163) Elite liberal arts college (n 5 122) Strong master’s university (n 5 158) Strong 4-year college (n 5 124) Other master’s university (n 5 120) Other 4-year college (n 5 69) Two-year college (n 5 60)

Male/female ratio

Full professor

Associate professor

Assistant professor

Instructor

66.7/33.3 63.0/37.0 68.5/31.5 61.7/38.3 45.8/54.2 47.1/52.9 46.3/53.7 57.6/42.4 45.0/55.0 49.3/50.7

55.1 53.6 47.8 40.0 33.3 43.8 27.0 45.2 32.7 —

10.1 24.0 29.9 37.1 23.7 24.2 36.0 30.1 27.3 —

34.8 22.4 22.4 22.9 31.2 31.3 33.0 24.7 30.9 —

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.8 0.8 4.0 0.0 9.1 —

Note. The numbers in the table are percentages. The percentages for gender ratio exclude 13 individuals whose gender could not be determined. The percentages for rank exclude individuals whose rank could not be determined (some of whom may have been at institutions that do not rank faculty); rank data are not shown for community colleges because most had no ranks listed for their faculty.

PsycINFO is an imperfect representation of scholarship in some respects. Coverage of scholarly books is incomplete. Therefore, the publication counts reported here underestimate scholarly productivity. However, the distribution of bookchapter credits should generally follow that of journal articles, so relative levels of productivity ought not to be affected unduly. In addition, articles published in nonpsychological journals may be omitted. PsycINFO does, however, abstract many journals in closely related fields (e.g., education and medicine), and few psychologists publish extensively in more distant fields (e.g., literary criticism). Still, the productivity of neuroscientists would be markedly underestimated by PsycINFO. For individuals identified as members of neuroscience-related groups or whose publications had a clearly biological emphasis, the PsycINFO search was supplemented by a MedLine search. Finally, PsycINFO coverage of the literature prior to the early 1970s is less complete than its more recent coverage, and as a result, productivity ratings from earlier decades may be underestimates. Only about 10% of the sample began their scholarly careers before 1970, and most of these people were in the early stages of their work at that time, so very few ratings are likely to have been affected unduly. However, findings for the most senior academics should be treated cautiously. Certain problems arose using PsycINFO to identify individuals’ contributions. First, in some cases, two psychologists of the same name had publications. Institutional affiliations and middle initials usually resolved the issue; disparate fields of specialization also helped. Second, some female academics changed their names after marrying. Many specified their name change on the Web, on their home page or curriculum vita. In other cases, both names appeared (perhaps hyphenated) on some publications, so all permutations of the names were used to locate missing early works. Third, some faculty members were

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listed under probable nicknames. In these cases, the search included names often contracted into the nickname in question. The two principal indices of scholarly productivity were the total number of publications by each faculty member and the mean number produced per year, defined as total publications divided by career age in years. Career age was based on the year in which the Ph.D. was awarded. Often this year was indicated on the Web, either on the institution’s home page or on a posted curriculum vita. Because most dissertations are abstracted in PsycINFO, this database provided a backup means of dating terminal degrees. If a faculty member was said to hold a doctorate but its date was unavailable (true in fewer than 10% of cases), the publication record was used to estimate career age. A few individuals lacking terminal degrees and publications had to be omitted from some analyses. In addition, the number of publications in each calendar year was tabulated. These figures were collapsed into intervals to smooth out random fluctuations in publication count from year to year: publications before completion of the doctoral degree (prePh.D.) and those in 3-year intervals thereafter (0–2 years postPh.D., 3–5 years post-Ph.D., etc.) through the 23rd postdoctoral year. All publications appearing 24 or more years after receipt of the doctorate were grouped together. No attempt was made to evaluate the quality of scholarly work represented by each publication. Various means of doing so exist, but all are quite time-consuming, and their use probably would not enhance the data much; quantity and quality of scholarly output tend to be strongly correlated (Simonton, 2003). Publication in a source deemed worthy of inclusion in PsycINFO was treated as a threshold, with all pieces meeting this criterion viewed as units contributed to the field. Similarly, no attempt was made to weight authorial credit by number of authors or ordinal position on a list of authors. In this case, too, it seemed


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unlikely that the immense labor required would yield much of an increment in the validity of the data set (Hanish, 2001). Heroic individuals and authorial leeches notwithstanding, authorial position probably balances out fairly well across researchers. In addition to being treated as a continuous variable, career age was broken down into seven categories defined by 5-year intervals (i.e., 1–5 years post-Ph.D., 6–10 years post-Ph.D., and so on, ending with 311 years). Similarly, in addition to being used as a continuous variable, total number of career-to-date publications was broken down into seven levels. Because the distribution of publications was positively skewed, the range was larger for each successive level, as follows: individuals with no publications (n 5 161; 13.3% of the total), those with 1 to 4 (n 5 314; 25.9%), those with 5 to 12 (n 5 286; 23.6%), those with 13 to 24 (n 5 184; 15.2%), those with 25 to 40 (n 5 104; 8.6%), those with 41 to 60 (n 5 77; 6.4%), and those with more than 60 (n 5 84; 6.9%). The skewed nature of the distribution (with an overall mean of 18.04 and a standard deviation of 30.64) was expected; scientific productivity tends to be distributed this way. Indeed, these figures conform well to the principle that the top 10% of participants in a scientific field tend to account for about 50% of all contributions to the field (Simonton, 2003). Altogether, the members of this sample enjoyed 21,830 authorial credits. The top 120 individuals accounted for 10,356 (47.4%) of these. The Price law, according to which 50% of all contributions ought to flow from a number of researchers equal to the square root of the total number in the field (see Simonton, 2003), was not supported; the top 35 publishers accounted for a remarkable 4,932 authorial credits, but this was only 22.6% of the total. Perhaps, however, this was not a definitive test of the Price law, for the sample was selective; people who never publish are less likely than others to hold academic posts. RESULTS

Career-to-Date Publications A 10 (institution type) 7 (career-age group) 2 (gender) factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA), with total publication

count as the dependent variable, yielded statistically significant effects for institution type, F(9, 958) 5 16.52, p < .001, Z2 5 .134; career age, F(6, 958) 5 8.79, p < .001, Z2 5 .052); and gender, F(1, 958) 5 4.08, p 5 .044, Z2 5 .004, plus an interaction of institution type and career age, F(53, 958) 5 1.63, p < .01, Z2 5 .083. No other interaction approached statistical significance. Post hoc pair-wise comparisons clarified the effects of institution type. All three levels of research university (elite, strong, and other) formed a homogeneous group. Publication counts for each exceeded those for any other type of institution (all ps < .01). Other doctoral institutions and elite liberal arts colleges formed another homogeneous group. The number of publications per faculty member at these institutions, although less than that at research universities, significantly exceeded that at any other type of school (all ps < .01). The two groups of master’s universities did not differ from each other in productivity; faculty at the more prestigious master’s universities had published slightly more than those at strong 4-year colleges (p 5 .049), but faculty at the less highly ranked master’s universities had not. These three categories may be treated as another approximately homogeneous group. Faculty at all three published more than those at 2-year colleges. In addition, faculty at both groups of master’s universities outpublished those at minor regional 4-year colleges. The three homogeneous groupings (research universities, other doctoral institutions plus elite liberal arts colleges, and master’s universities plus strong 4-year colleges) were used in another analysis in order to clarify the differences obtaining across institution type. (Lesser 4-year colleges and 2-year schools were excluded from this analysis.) A 3 7 2 factorial ANOVA again yielded statistically significant main effects of institution type, F(2, 979) 5 67.40, p < .001, Z2 5 .121; career age, F(6, 979) 5 13.61, p < .001, Z2 5 .077; and gender, F(1, 979) 5 8.90, p < .01, Z2 5 .009, plus a significant interaction between institution type and career age, F(12, 979) 5 4.22, p < .001, Z2 5 .049, with no other interaction approaching conventional significance. Each group of institutions differed sig-

TABLE 2 Mean Total Number of Publications of Faculty at Three Homogeneous Subgroups of Institutions (Stratified by Career Age) Career age

Research universities

Other doctoral universities and elite liberal arts colleges

Master’s universities and strong 4-year colleges

1–5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16–20 years 21–25 years 26–30 years 311 years

8.24 (8.89) 13.95 (7.95) 26.27 (23.98) 32.28 (29.58) 38.86 (23.58) 57.98 (70.39) 51.85 (47.23)

4.47 (4.58) 7.80 (11.45) 12.45 (8.71) 15.40 (12.80) 13.60 (9.90) 25.36 (23.52) 30.56 (29.35)

2.27 (2.26) 4.14 (3.50) 7.57 (9.66) 7.68 (8.29) 8.35 (8.88) 8.03 (13.04) 8.24 (10.45)

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

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nificantly from the other two. Table 2 shows the average number of publications per individual for each group of schools, stratified by career age. The interaction effect clearly lies in the fact that although publication count generally continued to rise (more or less monotonically) over the course of a career at doctoral universities of all varieties and elite colleges, this was not the case at master’s universities or less elite (though still strong) 4-year schools, where publication count appeared to stagnate after the first dozen or so postdoctoral years. Because this three-group classification of schools proved useful, it was utilized in most later analyses. The effect size for gender was strikingly small, accounting for less than 0.5% of the variance. However, in a one-way ANOVA that did not control for career age or institution type, the gender effect was many times greater (Z2 5 .036), a result that underscores the importance of taking other variables into account when studying gender effects on productivity. A series of similar three-way ANOVAs covered publication activity during eight separate phases of the career (predoctorally and for each subsequent 3-year interval except the last, for which there were relatively few participants). The relationship between type of institution and scholarly output could therefore be analyzed from a developmental perspective. Differences by career age would indicate the presence of cohort effects (e.g., an increase in publication rates among more recently minted academics). The gender effect also could be explored more fully. Table 3 shows the main effects of this series of ANOVAs; no interaction effect reached or approached statistical significance. Type of institution exerted an effect at all stages of the career, though the impact was weak predoctorally. The only significant differences from this period were that individuals employed by elite research universities, strong research universities, or elite TABLE 3 Analysis of Variance Results: Impact of Institution Type, Career Age, and Gender on Scholarly Productivity Across the Career Career stage

dfa

Institution typeb

Career agec

Gender

Predoctoral 0–2 years 3–5 years 6–8 years 9–11 years 12–14 years 15–17 years 18–20 years

910 910 831 759 691 580 497 429

5.25nn 12.09nn 13.91nn 14.14nn 10.91nn 12.01nn 8.08nn 6.03nn

3.84nn 2.19n 0.95 1.44 1.13 0.35 1.10 0.92

4.53n 5.14n 10.55nn 4.31n 1.26 0.58 0.11 0.21

a

The numbers in this column indicate the degrees of freedom in the denominator of the F statistic. Degrees of freedom in the numerator were 9 for institution type, 6 for career age, and 1 for gender. bType of institution was the category of the institution where the individual was employed in 2004; see the text for a description of the categories. cCareer age was based on the number of years since receipt of the doctorate (divided into 5-year intervals). n p < .05. nnp < .001.

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liberal arts colleges published more than their peers who were employed by master’s universities, less elite 4-year colleges, or 2-year schools. Results for the postdoctoral phases were stronger. Basically, faculty members at all three categories of research universities published significantly more in every 3year period than did their peers at every other type of school, except that those at the weaker, other research universities sometimes did not exceed the level of publication by faculty members at other doctoral institutions or elite liberal arts colleges. In only one time frame (6–8 years post-Ph.D.) did those at elite research universities publish significantly more than those at the least-prestigious research universities. Additionally, faculty at other doctoral institutions and elite liberal arts colleges consistently published more than did their peers at master’s universities, less-elite 4-year colleges, and 2-year schools, except that some comparisons with the strong master’s universities fell short of statistical significance. Career age had little impact on the number of publications produced at various stages of the career. Two F tests were significant: those for predoctoral and immediately postdoctoral publications. The youngest faculty members (those receiving doctorates between 1999 and 2003) published more as graduate students than did any of the three oldest cohorts (those with more than 20 years’ experience). The next two groups (those with 6–15 years’ experience) also had higher predoctoral publication counts than did the very oldest cohort (those with more than 30 years’ experience). Interpretation of this finding, however, must be tempered by the relatively weak PsycINFO coverage for the years during which these most senior academics attended graduate school. For the first few postdoctoral years, the only significant differences were that the cohort with 21 to 25 years’ experience published less than the cohorts with 6 to 15 or with more than 30 years’ experience—hardly a linear trend. Thus, limited support was found for the hypothesis that aspiring academics today may be publishing more as graduate students than did their peers two or more decades ago. Results of the gender analyses were interesting. Statistically significant differences, always favoring males, were found for predoctoral publication activity and for each of the first three postdoctoral intervals. Most of these differences were modest, but males substantially outpublished females during the 3rd through 5th postdoctoral years. During the latter four intervals, by contrast, there was not even a hint of a gender gap. The differential productivity of males seems to be expressed only during the initial push for tenure. Table 4 shows the proportion of faculty members at each type of institution who had produced various numbers of publications up through the time of this study. These distributions make it possible to identify the venues in which eminent members of the profession are likely to be found. In general, these data are consistent with what would be expected given the means reported earlier. Eminent scholars were found mainly at research universities; a few such individuals were based in other doctoral


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TABLE 4 Distribution of Number of Career-to-Date Publications Across Institution Type Total number of publications (career to date) Institution type Elite research university Strong research university Other research university Other doctoral institution Elite liberal arts college Strong master’s university Strong 4-year college Other master’s university Other 4-year college Two-year college

0

1–4

5–12

13–24

25–40

41–60

611

0.0 1.0 0.9 7.4 8.3 11.5 17.9 24.2 36.7 65.2

3.0 11.5 7.5 23.9 19.0 38.5 47.2 40.8 50.0 31.9

20.8 15.2 18.7 30.7 33.1 33.3 28.5 25.8 11.7 1.4

19.8 22.2 33.6 17.2 23.1 9.6 5.7 5.0 1.7 1.4

15.8 18.8 15.0 10.4 7.4 3.8 0.2 3.3 0.0 0.0

15.8 13.6 11.2 8.0 4.1 2.6 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.0

24.8 17.8 13.1 2.5 5.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Note. The numbers shown are percentages of faculty members at each publication level within each type of institution. For example, 16 of the 101 faculty members at elite research universities had published between 41 and 60 pieces (15.8% of the total).

institutions, elite liberal arts colleges, or (rarely) master’s universities. Note, however, that a clear majority of faculty members even at the weaker 4-year colleges and master’s universities had at least one or two scholarly publications—in many cases, rather more. Paired-samples t tests were used to evaluate changes in the number of publications produced during each 3-year postdoctoral interval. These academics published less during the first 3 postdoctoral years than in any subsequent interval (all ps < .001, except p 5 .016 for the comparison with the 21st through 23rd postdoctoral years). Of the 21 other pair-wise comparisons, only one reached statistical significance at the .05 level, a result readily attributable to chance. The general trend seemed to be for publication activity to increase rapidly toward an asymptote, then remain at approximately the same level for at least 20 years. The data did not show the gradual decline from an initial peak reported by Simonton (1999), perhaps because the decline does not become noticeable until after the range of career ages included in these analyses.

Publication Rate (Mean Number per Year) A 10 (institution type) 7 (career-age group) 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA, with mean number of publications per year as the dependent variable, yielded statistically significant effects for institution type, F(9, 957) 5 21.67, p < .001, Z2 5 .169; career age, F(6, 957) 5 3.98, p < .01, Z2 5 .024; and gender, F(1, 958) 5 4.57, p 5 .033, Z2 5 .005, with no interaction effect approaching significance. As was the case for career-to-date publications, institution type produced the most robust effect, and gender produced a statistically significant but practically unimportant effect. In contrast to career-to-date publications, however, publication rate showed only a relatively small effect of career age. This makes sense, of course, as the major purpose behind measuring the mean number of publications per year was

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to control for career age; indeed, the only factor driving the main effect of career age on mean number of publications per year was an apparent superiority on the part of the most junior faculty members, those with 5 or fewer years of postdoctoral experience. This finding would appear to support the contention that publication demands have increased, but for the fact that career age was dated from receipt of the Ph.D., whereas the publication figures include predoctoral work. When predoctoral publications were excluded, no effect of career age on publication rate remained. Post hoc pair-wise comparisons of publication rate yielded results similar to those for total publication count, with a few noteworthy differences (listed in parentheses). The three sets of research universities constituted a homogeneous group; faculty at each type of research university published more per year than faculty at any other type of institution (except that faculty at elite liberal arts colleges were statistically equivalent to their peers at the less prestigious, other research universities on this measure). Faculty at other doctoral institutions and elite liberal arts colleges formed another group, publishing more than their peers at master’s universities and other 4-year and 2-year colleges (except that faculty at other doctoral institutions did not outpublish their peers at strong master’s universities or strong liberal arts colleges on this measure). Faculty at master’s universities (both levels) and at strong 4-year colleges constituted a third homogeneous group, generally publishing more per year than their peers at other 4-year colleges or 2-year schools (except that the superiority of faculty at other master’s universities to those at other 4-year colleges was only a weak trend, with p 5 .092). Once again, the three homogeneous groupings were used in another analysis to clarify the effect of institution type. A 3 7 2 factorial ANOVA yielded statistically significant main effects of institution type, F(2, 978) 5 90.23, p < .001, Z2 5 .156; career age, F(6, 978) 5 7.47, p < .001, Z2 5 .044; and


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gender, F(1, 978) 5 11.71, p < .001, Z2 5 .012, but no interaction effect. Faculty at research universities published more per annum than did those at elite liberal arts colleges and other doctoral institutions, who in turn published more per annum than did those at master’s universities or less-elite liberal arts colleges. Table 5 shows descriptive statistics for these analyses.

Tenure and Scholarly Productivity Absent the actual dates on which tenure was awarded, tests of the hypothesis that tenure leads to a marked decline in scholarly output could be only approximate. It is, however, probably fair to assume that the large majority of tenured faculty members attained tenured status within about 10 years of receipt of the doctoral degree. Allowing a year for pieces in press at the time of achieving tenure to be published, one may say that the 12-year period beginning in the year of receipt of the doctorate encompasses the push for tenure. Publication rates during and after this period may therefore be compared as a rough proxy for pre- and posttenure scholarship. The mean career-to-date publication counts shown in Table 2 suggest that tenure has little effect on productivity among faculty at research universities, other doctoral institutions, or elite liberal arts colleges, but has a profound effect among faculty at master’s universities and less-elite 4-year colleges. These figures, however, include faculty members of different degrees of seniority, raising the possibility of cohort effects. For example, it could be the case that the younger generation of psychologists at master’s universities was more prolific than their seniors ever were. A better test of the effect of tenure on scholarship is provided by examining the records of senior academics, defined here as those with at least 22 years of postdoctoral activity (n 5 434). First, the total number of publications from the first 12 postdoctoral years was compared with that from the next 12 years. The number of early-career publications (M 5 10.87, SD 5 12.02) did not differ significantly from the number of middlecareer publications (M 5 11.48, SD 5 18.26), t(433) 5 1.04. Next, the number of midcareer publications was divided by the

number of early-career publications for all individuals who published at least 7 pieces during the pretenure period (n 5 229). This ratio was not calculated for those who published little during their early years because small denominators render such statistics unstable. For these senior academics with substantial publication records, the mean ratio of middle- to earlycareer publications was 1.02 (SD 5 0.75); the median was 0.89 (interquartile range 5 0.48–1.38). On average, scholarly productivity held remarkably stable, though publication rates for individuals often rose or fell in the posttenure years. Table 6 shows the ratio of middle- to early-career publications for each of the three homogeneous subgroups of institutions. (Only 1 faculty member from the other 4-year schools, and none from the other institution types, met inclusion criteria for the ratio.) The differences were statistically significant, F(2, 225) 5 9.11, p < .001, with each group of schools differing from the others to a significant degree. Faculty members at research universities tended to maintain a stable level of output, the output of those at other doctoral institutions and elite liberal arts colleges tended to decline modestly, and the output of those at master’s universities and less-elite 4-year colleges declined precipitously. Because of small numbers of females in some cells, a two-way ANOVA was not feasible. However, a t test comparing males (M 5 0.92, SD 5 0.71) and females (M 5 1.30, SD 5 0.76) yielded statistically significant results, t(227) 5 3.56, p < .001. Female academics, who tended to fall behind their male peers during the early postdoctoral years, also tended to increase their output once they attained senior status—something not true of males.

Using Career Age and Institution Type to Predict Productivity The relationship between institution type (represented on a 4-point scale, with the three homogeneous groups of schools numbered 3, 2, and 1, respectively, and minor 4-year and 2-year schools numbered 0) and career-to-date publications was moderately strong, r 5 .44 (p < .001). Career age also was

TABLE 5 Mean Number of Publications per Year of Faculty at Three Homogeneous Subgroups of Institutions (Stratified by Career Age) Career age

Research universities

Other doctoral universities and elite liberal arts colleges

Master’s universities and strong 4-year colleges

1–5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16–20 years 21–25 years 26–30 years 311 years

2.63 (2.72) 1.89 (1.00) 2.04 (1.83) 1.81 (1.64) 1.70 (1.04) 2.12 (2.49) 1.40 (1.35)

1.86 (1.90) 1.07 (1.64) 0.97 (0.69) 0.85 (0.71) 0.59 (0.44) 0.91 (0.87) 0.84 (0.75)

0.94 (1.11) 0.56 (0.49) 0.58 (0.71) 0.44 (0.48) 0.37 (0.41) 0.29 (0.49) 0.24 (0.30)

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

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TABLE 6 Ratio of Middle-Career Publications to Early-Career Publications (Stratified by Type of Institution) Percentile Institution type Research university Other doctoral institution or elite liberal arts college Master’s university or strong 4-year college

n

Mean

SD

10th

25th

50th

75th

90th

162

1.13

0.76

0.34

0.54

0.93

1.50

2.25

51

0.86

0.65

0.12

0.47

0.70

1.05

1.77

15

0.39

0.50

0.00

0.00

0.14

0.67

1.37

Note. Late publications are from postdoctoral years 12 through 23, and early publications are from postdoctoral years 0 through 11.

related to total publication count, r 5 .36, p < .001. The interaction of career age with (4-point) institution type correlated with total publication count, r 5 .55 (p < .001), explaining 30% of the variance in scholarly productivity. A regression analysis showed that publication count was predicted by adding .61 to the product of .48 times career age (number of postdoctoral years) times institution type (0, 1, 2, or 3). Eliminating 10 outliers, each of whom exceeded his or her predicted publication count by more than 3 standard deviations (these outliers accounted for 10% of all publications in the sample), improved predictive accuracy. The correlation between publication count and the interaction of career age with institution type rose to .66 (p < .001; adjusted R2 5 .43), and the number of career-to-date publications was predicted by adding 1.31 to the product of .42 times career age times institution type.

Are Prolific Professors at Elite Schools Cultivated or Bought? To what extent do universities bring faculty members up through the ranks versus hire senior faculty away from rivals? A school that ‘‘grows’’ highly successful scholars is creating circumstances conducive to productivity; one whose eminent professors are all hired from elsewhere after already having achieved success may simply be capitalizing on its financial resources. ‘‘Poaching’’ of highly successful academics is reputedly common, especially on the part of the most prestigious (and affluent) universities. Because PsycINFO citations typically include institutional affiliations for senior authors, it was possible to track the professional movement of the 70 faculty members with the highest career-to-date publication counts—the top 5.8% of the sample, each of whom had at least 65 publications listed by PsycINFO. The large majority of these individuals (85.7%) were employed by research universities: 22 at elite institutions (21.8% of the faculty at such schools met this standard), 26 at strong research universities (13.4% of their total), and 12 at other research universities (11.1% of their total). Of the remainder, 3 were employed by other doctoral institutions (1.9% of their total), 6 by elite liberal arts colleges (4.6% of their total), and 1 by

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a strong master’s university (0.6% of their total). The dominance of research universities was highly statistically significant, w2 (1, N 5 70) 5 45.69, p < .001. Furthermore, when strong and other research universities were merged into one category, a comparison of this category with elite research universities showed that the proportion of faculty who had achieved this degree of eminence was greater at elite research universities, w2(1, N 5 60) 5 4.77, p < .05. Any superiority of the elite research universities in scholarly productivity is attributable to the fact that a larger subset of their faculties had attained eminence in the field. For purposes of further analysis, all individuals not employed by research universities were collapsed into a third category. Academics were deemed to have been hired as senior-level professors (poached) if they met two criteria: at least 10 postdoctoral career years and at least 40 publications before joining their current institutions. The second criterion is compatible with one small study’s report that persons hired by research universities as full professors averaged 62 publications, including 50 journal articles (Gore et al., 1998). Individuals with less experience were presumed to have been engaged as less than full professors and to have earned tenure at their current institutions. Those with fewer publications after 101 postdoctoral years were considered unlikely candidates for aggressive recruiting; some may have come to their current schools after failing to make tenure elsewhere. Altogether, 50 (71.4%) of these eminent academics had remained with the same school since early in their careers (though some had worked elsewhere for a few years before settling into their current positions); the remaining 20 (28.6%) had taken their current positions as highly experienced professionals (i.e., had been poached). The ratios of home-grown to poached eminent psychologists at elite research universities, less-elite research universities, and all other schools combined were, respectively, 12:10, 30:8, and 10:0. The difference was statistically significant, w2(2, N 5 70) 5 8.37, p < .05. This result was partly due to the fact that all the eminent faculty members at other doctoral institutions, liberal arts colleges, and master’slevel schools had remained with the same institutions since early in their careers. However, the difference between elite and


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less-than-elite research universities was also significant, w2(1, N 5 60) 5 3.94, p < .05. Furthermore, the ratio at the two most prestigious schools (Yale and Princeton; 7:9) differed sharply from that for all other research universities (35:9), w2(1, N 5 60) 5 7.17, p < .01. These results support the contention that top universities poach successful, established academics away from other institutions more often than do their less-prestigious peers. Other universities, by comparison, apparently supplement their occasional hires of well-established, eminent researchers by hiring what might be called ‘‘rising stars’’: individuals with 5 to 10 years of experience and a promising early publication count. Schools other than research universities may find it difficult to retain their top scholars. (This possibility was underscored when, after sample identification but during data collection, 1 of the 2 most prolific faculty members from the elite liberal arts category was recruited by a research university also in the sample.) How Well Do Early Publications Predict Future Productivity? The validity of early publications as a predictor of research productivity over the span of a career is an empirical issue that has drawn little research attention. Graduate students aspiring to academic careers are encouraged to publish, and institutions looking to hire new junior faculty members take early productivity into consideration, but these practices are based more on informal lore than on demonstrated validity. Whether or not early productivity predicts later productivity is perhaps best thought of as a subset of a larger question: To what extent is scholarly productivity consistent at various stages of an academic career? One may treat publication rates at various career stages as variables tapping into a single underlying construct: scholarly or scientific potential (Simonton, 1999). The correlation between productivity at any given stage and productivity over the remainder of the career estimates the cohesiveness of this construct. Psychometric statistics such as Cronbach’s coefficient alpha are appropriate for evaluating the degree of cohesiveness.

Table 7 shows the correlation between productivity in each 3-year career stage and productivity over the remainder of the first 20 postdoctoral years for all faculty members in the sample with at least 18 years of postdoctoral experience. The table also lists separate correlations for each of the three homogeneous subgroups of schools. All the correlations were statistically significant, and internal consistency was quite strong (especially at research universities), but predoctoral publications correlated relatively weakly with productivity over the remainder of the career. Early postdoctoral years were much more strongly predictive, and by the time academics had accrued 5 years’ worth of postdoctoral experience, their relative levels of scholarly productivity had stabilized to a remarkable degree. This is not to say that predoctoral publication is irrelevant to future scholarship. Taken as a group, individuals who had published prior to completing their doctorates (53.4%) accrued almost 50% more authorial credits than did those who had not (46.7%): 22.23 33.00 versus 16.47 27.33, t(1057) 5 3.07, p < .01. This effect applied to both genders, all career-age groups, and all types of institutions. However, the results indicate that predoctoral publication activity is largely determined by factors other than those that lead to productive postdoctoral careers—for owing to the vast variability in publication activity, the effect size was small (Cohen’s d 5 0.19).

Early Career Development: Effects of Graduate School, Initial Employment, and Gender A subset of the sample was investigated in more detail to investigate early career development, including publication and employment patterns. The individuals in this subset were academics with 12 to 23 years’ experience. Thus, they had had enough time for their publication rates (and, arguably, employment) to have stabilized, but were almost independent of the group of senior academics studied earlier.

TABLE 7 Productivity at Specific Career Stages and Productivity for the First 20 Postdoctoral Years: Corrected Item-Total Correlations and Internal Consistency

Career stage

All schools (n 5 506, a 5 .91)

Research universities (n 5 225, a 5 .89)

Other doctoral universities and elite liberal arts colleges (n 5 121, a 5 .83)

Master’s universities and strong 4-year colleges (n 5 137, a 5 .82)

Predoctoral 0–2 years 3–5 years 6–8 years 9–11 years 12–14 years 15–17 years 18–20 years

.21 .54 .69 .79 .86 .83 .85 .77

.17 .43 .64 .77 .84 .84 .85 .76

.19 .41 .60 .66 .74 .59 .65 .54

.28 .58 .72 .65 .66 .55 .49 .38

Note. The table presents corrected item-total correlations, subtracting the number of publications for the period in question from the total.

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PsycINFO and departmental Web pages were used to determine the university where each person earned his or her doctorate and the nature of each person’s first subsequent employment, aside from short-term postdoctoral fellowships. Schools of origin and initial academic employers were coded using the system followed for current employers (1 5 elite research university, 2 5 strong research university, etc.), with two exceptions. First, research universities falling between the elite (top 25) level and the strong (51–100) level were assigned an intermediate number (1.5) and termed near-elite. This group included such schools as the University of North Carolina and New York University. Second, although research universities were stratified into four levels, other groups of schools that had proved similar in scholarly output were merged (i.e., other doctoral institutions with elite liberal arts colleges, coded 4, and all master’s universities with strong 4-year colleges, coded 5). Schools of origin were identified for 239 individuals in the designated career-age range. Of these, the percentages earning their degrees from the different institution types were as follows: elite universities, 18.4%; near-elite universities, 18.8%; strong research universities, 37.7%; other research universities, 20.5%; and other doctoral schools, 4.6%. First jobs were identified for 215 individuals, of whom 83.3% were employed as academics and 16.7% worked in clinical or other applied settings; many of the latter probably had extended postdoctoral positions, often at hospitals affiliated with medical schools. Of the academics, 17.3% were with elite or near-elite universities, 17.9% with strong research universities, 10.6% with other research universities, 20.2% with other doctoral or elite liberal arts schools, and 34.1% with master’s universities or strong 4-year colleges. Males (n 5 92) and females (n 5 85) were equally likely to be employed at each level: w2(4, N 5 177) 5 3.49, n.s. Note that this sample was biased toward including more productive academics, because employers could not be specified in the absence of regular publications. By extension, it was possible to code changes in the prestige level of institutional affiliations from graduate school to first job to present employment, as well as the fact of job change. Not surprisingly, the status of one’s graduate school was moderately correlated with that of one’s first academic employer (r 5 .29, p < .01) and current employer (r 5 .35, p < .01). The top three categories of research universities showed a marked tendency to hire from schools at their own levels. This was not true of lowerranking research universities, which hired more graduates from strong schools than from schools at their own prestige level. Most graduates of other research universities (and many from strong schools) were engaged by master’s universities or 4-year colleges. But graduates of all levels of universities were found at virtually every type of institution. Prestige of the school of origin, the first academic employer, and the current employer was correlated with the mean number of publications per year, number of predoctoral publications, and number of publications during each subsequent 3-year

358

interval up to 14 years after receipt of the terminal degree. School of origin was weakly but significantly correlated with overall publishing activity (r 5 .13, p < .05), but not with number of predoctoral publications (r 5 .02) or number of publications during any of the first four postdoctoral intervals (rs ranged from .04 to .11); only for the last interval examined did this correlation achieve significance (r 5 .19, p < .05). Being educated in a highly prestigious university was associated with future scholarship, but this effect was mediated by subsequent employment. Controlling statistically for current institution type eliminated the relationship between total number of publications and school of origin (partial r 5 .01), but controlling statistically for school of origin left a robust relationship between current employment and total number of publications (partial r 5 .46, p < .01). First academic employment was more strongly related to overall publication rate (r 5 .38, p < .01) than to the other measures of productive output. Although uncorrelated with number of predoctoral publications (r 5 .02), first academic employer was significantly related to the number of publications generated during each subsequent 3-year interval (rs ranged from .23 to .38). Of the individuals always employed academically, 58.1% remained with their first employer, and 41.1% changed positions. Males and females were equally likely to change jobs, w2(1, N 5 140) 5 1.30, n.s. The provenance and fates of those who changed academic posts during the early years of their careers are of particular interest: Twenty-two moved to higherstatus institutions, 17 moved to new institutions of similar prestige, and 36 moved to lower-status schools. Males and females were equally likely to move up, stay at the same level, or move down, w2(2, N 5 75) 5 1.88, n.s. The subsample was thus divided into five groups: individuals who (a) remained in their initial academic job, (b) moved to a higher-level academic setting, (c) moved to a new but similar academic setting, (d) moved to a lower-level academic setting, and (e) worked for several years in nonprofessorial positions (often at medical schools) before joining psychology departments. Graduates of research universities at various levels were equally likely to fall into any of these five groups, w2(12, N 5 215) 5 13.51, n.s. Publication records for each group were analyzed across genders using 5 2 factorial ANOVAs and post hoc Tukey tests. Table 8 shows descriptive statistics and results of F tests of group-by-gender interactions for the mean number of publications per year overall, in the predoctoral period, and in each of the first five postdoctoral periods. Main effects were evident, with individuals moving up in academic status or working initially in nonacademic positions tending to publish more than others and males tending to outpublish females. However, institution-type-by-gender interaction effects were the primary focus of interest, and the most revealing analyses were across gender within employment categories. Statistically significant interaction effects emerged for overall number of


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TABLE 8 Publication Activity During Early-Career Periods by Employment Type and Gender Employment type Upward (n 5 21) Career stage Mean Predoctoral 0–2 years 3–5 years 6–8 years 9–11 years 12–14 years

Similar (n 517)

Downward (n 5 36)

No change (n 5 103)

Nonacademic (n 5 37)

Males (n 5 8)

Females (n 5 13)

Males (n 5 10)

Females (n 5 7)

Males (n 5 15)

Females (n 5 21)

Males (n 5 59)

Females (n 5 44)

Males (n 5 21)

Females (n 516)

2.68 (1.48) 1.50 (1.41) 5.25 (3.73) 6.00 (2.51) 10.00 (8.62) 7.75 (5.06) 5.00 (3.51)

1.30 (0.68) 1.38 (1.33) 2.08 (1.93) 2.69 (1.93) 4.54 (3.76) 3.50 (2.81) 4.36 (4.06)

0.99 (0.81) 1.70 (2.00) 2.30 (1.49) 2.60 (3.27) 4.20 (4.42) 2.70 (3.33) 2.62 (2.92)

0.40 (0.30) 0.43 (0.79) 1.00 (1.00) 1.71 (1.38) 0.43 (1.13) 1.29 (1.38) 0.57 (1.13)

0.91 (0.41) 0.87 (1.46) 1.93 (2.09) 2.13 (1.73) 2.60 (2.32) 2.40 (2.35) 2.79 (2.26)

0.90 (0.67) 1.24 (1.45) 1.90 (1.73) 2.71 (2.57) 2.57 (1.99) 2.81 (2.60) 2.68 (3.07)

1.17 (1.45) 1.26 (1.70) 2.21 (2.32) 3.02 (4.11) 2.86 (3.36) 2.90 (3.97) 3.13 (4.62)

0.96 (1.07) 1.30 (2.01) 1.89 (1.96) 2.43 (2.16) 2.80 (3.20) 3.11 (3.72) 3.03 (5.65)

2.33 (2.53) 2.71 (3.72) 4.14 (5.46) 6.19 (5.33) 6.95 (10.13) 7.71 (9.26) 4.95 (4.61)

0.68 (0.54) 1.44 (1.59) 1.25 (1.88) 2.00 (2.10) 2.44 (2.58) 2.06 (2.79) 1.00 (1.20)

Employment Type Gender interaction (factorial analysis of variance) F(4, 204) 5 2.97n F(4, 203) 5 1.23 F(4, 203) 5 2.73n F(4, 203) 5 3.28n F(4, 203) 5 2.99n F(4, 202) 5 3.83n F(4, 184) 5 1.42

Note. Publication activity is defined as the total number of publications appearing during each career stage. Numbers shown are means, with standard deviations in parentheses. Upward 5 moved from lower- to higher-status academic setting; similar 5 moved from one academic setting to another at the same level; downward 5 moved from higher- to lower-status academic setting; no change 5 remained with initial academic employer; nonacademic 5 worked for at least a few years in a nonprofessorial position (e.g., medical-school-affiliated hospital) before entering the academy. n p < .05.

publications per year and the number of publications per year in each of the first four postdoctoral periods. Among individuals who remained in the same academic position, males and females published at comparable rates (except for the usual male burst in the 3rd through 5th postdoctoral years), averaging about one piece per year. Those who moved to lower-status schools had a similar overall publication rate and also showed no gender differences (this subset of males did not exhibit the 3rd- to 5th-year burst). Males who changed to roughly comparable schools also averaged about one publication per year; females in this category published considerably less. This finding is difficult to interpret, but it may be noted that this was a very small subgroup. The most impressive findings were among individuals who moved from one academic post to another at a higher-level school or pursued nonprofessorial employment for some years before entering the academy. Females in the former group published at slightly higher rates than was typical of females in other groups, especially during the 6th through 11th postdoctoral years. Upwardly mobile males, however, published at extremely high rates throughout the first postdoctoral decade, typically generating twice as many publications as their female counterparts and almost three times as many as their peers on less meteoric trajectories. Males employed in nonacademic positions were the only other group to approach this level of activity, again surpassing most of their peers. (This was also the only subgroup to publish at notably higher rates than their peers

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during graduate school.) Nonacademic females, by contrast, published at very low rates. These findings shed further light on the nature of the gender differences in publication rates. A subset of males who may be characterized as highly ambitious strives to generate an impressive number of publications early in their careers as part of an upwardly mobile strategy, whether pursued in the academy or in postdoctoral research settings. This burst of activity reaches a kind of crescendo in the latter part of the first postdoctoral decade. As it subsides, these ambitious individuals become less sharply distinct from their peers, though continuing to produce substantial bodies of work. For whatever reason, there is not a comparable group of females. Normative Data Because of the skewed nature of the productivity distribution, percentile ranks afford the most valid norms. Table 9 provides normative publication rates for individuals in the three homogeneous subgroups of schools, separately for the predoctoral period and the 3-year postdoctoral intervals. DISCUSSION

Normative Data: Uses and Limitations These data provide the best available norms for scholarly productivity (defined by publications) among academic psychologists. They may be used in several ways. Individuals


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TABLE 9 Normative Publication Rate of Psychology Faculty Across the Career (Stratified by Type of Institution) Research universities (percentile)

Other doctoral universities and elite liberal arts colleges (percentile)

Master’s universities and strong 4-year colleges (percentile)

Career stage

25th

50th

75th

90th

25th

50th

75th

90th

25th

50th

75th

90th

Predoctoral 0–2 years 3–5 years 6–8 years 9–11 years 12–14 years 15–17 years 18–20 years 21–23 years

0 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

1 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 2

2 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 5

4 7 10 10 9 10 10 10.5 10

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

2 3 4 4 3.75 3 3 3 3

4 5 7 6 6 6 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0

3 3 3 3.6 3 2 2 2 1

Note. The table presents the number of publications indexed by PsycINFO predoctorally and during subsequent 3-year intervals. For research universities, n 5 399 for 0–2 years and 234 for 21–23 years. For other doctoral schools plus elite liberal arts colleges, n 5 302 for 0–2 years and 138 for 21–23 years. For master’s universities plus strong 4-year colleges, n 5 409 for 0–2 years and 167 for 21–23 years. For each institution type, norms are given for the 25th percentile, median, 75th percentile, and 90th percentile. Note that these numbers reflect the number of publications during each interval, not per year.

wishing to evaluate their progress within academia or their suitability for academic positions at various types of institutions can compare their publication records with the norms reported here, especially in Tables 4 and 9. Department chairs and members of committees concerned with decisions about hiring, promotion, and tenure also may find these figures useful. Finally, the data may be extrapolated to the departmental level for purposes of program evaluation. Note the great importance of taking institution type into account. For example, it may be reasonable to expect a research-university professor to average at least one publication per annum (more than half meet this standard), but only 1 in 4 professors at other doctoral institutions or elite liberal arts colleges and only 1 in 10 academics employed by master’s universities or reputable, but not elite, 4-year colleges do so (Table 9). Several limitations deserve discussion. Some are relatively minor. The gaps in the prestige rankings at research universities and liberal arts colleges (top 25 vs. below 50) raise the question of what is normative at schools with intermediate ranking. One might interpolate an intermediate set of standards or ask how the school in question views itself: as aspiring toward elite status or as accepting identification with the next tier. However, any institution that seeks to impose higher scholarly standards on its faculty also should assign adequate faculty-development resources to facilitate the process. Another issue is the geographically restricted nature of the sample. There is no prima facie reason to suppose that academic psychologists elsewhere in the country are either more or less scholarly than those in the Northeast, but this is an empirical question to be answered by future research—and no generalization beyond the borders of the United States is defensible. It also would be inappropriate to apply these norms to individuals employed in settings other than psychology departments (e.g., medical schools or nonacademic institutions).

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The largest problem remains the fact that PsycINFO does not include all scholarly publications. We may estimate the number of missing publications by comparing the proportion of self-reported publications that fall into categories other than journal articles (40% per Fennell & Kohout, 2002) with the proportion of publications listed by PsycINFO that are not journal articles (about 12.5%, excluding dissertations). These figures imply that for every 100 publications listed by PsycINFO, another 45.8 publications exist. Therefore, the norms presented here probably underestimate total self-reported publication counts by about 45%, though the larger number would include marginal publications, such as book reviews and newsletter columns. Given that PsycINFO is the standard vehicle through which psychology publications are identified by scholars in the field, its breadth of coverage should increase. For example, perhaps the policy of not soliciting copies of professional books should be revisited, at least with respect to presses that publish large numbers of psychology-related books. Given the relatively low publication rates for faculty members at master’s universities, most 4-year colleges, and 2-year institutions, there is a need for an alternative measure of scholarship more sensitive to works that fail to pass the publication threshold. Conference presentations are one possibility. Unfortunately, to date, there is no database containing this information. Some conference proceedings are posted on-line, but rarely in a searchable format.

Effects of Institutional Type and Prestige on Scholarly Productivity Comparison of scholarly output across types of institutions revealed several interesting points. The greater numbers of publications produced by faculty at research universities was expected. The near absence of differences in scholarly output


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Stephen Joy

among faculties at research universities of widely varying levels of institutional prestige was not. Evidently, once the basic elements of a true research university (e.g., an emphasis on scholarship in personnel decisions, investment in laboratory facilities, availability of graduate assistants, and a low teaching load) are in place, additional trappings make relatively little difference. The interaction of institution type with career age explains 30% to 43% of the variance in career-to-date publication counts. The one measure by which elite research universities clearly outperform their less elite peers is in the proportion of their faculties who have achieved eminence as highly productive researchers. Even in this case, however, one cannot assert that the elite schools maintain an institutional climate unusually conducive to creative ideas or research programs, for a disproportionate number of these eminent scholars actually achieved eminence elsewhere, only then being hired by the more elite (and affluent) institutions where they now work. If such poached superstars are excluded from consideration, all levels of research universities appear similar in their ability to cultivate research. The high level of publication activity at the top liberal arts colleges (equal to that at other doctoral institutions and well above that at master’s universities or other 4-year colleges) is also noteworthy. Despite a greater emphasis on teaching and the lack of graduate students at these schools, many of their faculty members sustain substantial research programs. It seems to be among 4-year colleges that institutional prestige correlates most strongly with scholarship of the psychology faculty (see Table 4). Academics at good, but less elite, 4-year colleges average only about half the publications of their peers at top schools. A minimum of five career-to-date publications might be taken as the threshold for having made any mark upon the profession; almost three quarters of the faculty members at elite liberal arts colleges have met this standard, as opposed to about one third of those at strong but not elite schools and fewer than one seventh of those at minor regional schools. Career Trajectories: Continuity and Change in Productivity Over Time For the sample as a whole, scholarly productivity appears to have grown during the predoctoral and first few postdoctoral years, and then remained relatively constant for at least 20 years. This pattern is consistent with a learning curve resulting in a given level of expertise (Ericsson & Charness, 1994). The overall pattern, of course, masks enormous variability within the sample. Both total publication counts and the distribution of publications across the career are clearly influenced by institutional setting, though evidently not by the prestige value of the school where the doctorate was earned. On average, faculty at research universities publish about twice as much as do those at other doctoral institutions or elite liberal arts colleges, who in turn publish about twice as much as do those at master’s universities

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or good, but less elite, 4-year colleges. Faculties at weaker 4year colleges lag behind; those at 2-year schools, even more so. It is also of note that faculty at research universities tend to sustain a rather stable level of output across their careers, displaying little or no diminution of scholarly activity after achieving tenure. Their peers at other doctoral schools and elite liberal arts colleges also persist in scholarly activity throughout their careers, though a moderate posttenure drop in publication rate is common in this population. At less-elite 4-year colleges and master’s universities, by contrast, a majority of faculty members—even those who publish at respectable rates during their early careers—show a marked decline in scholarly output during the second postdoctoral decade. Thus, the tenure-cliff hypothesis is supported only in the latter categories of schools. Analysis of publication patterns across the first 20 postdoctoral years indicates that scholarly productivity at all stages reflects a single underlying variable that might be called creative potential (Simonton, 1999). In general, the number of publications during any given interval is strongly correlated with the numbers during other intervals. At research universities, 90% (Table 7) of the variance in the number of career publications is attributable to this factor, not to bursts of activity during specific years, such as are produced by the push for tenure. Even at nonresearch universities, 80% of the variance is shared across time intervals. Knowing the level of scholarly output for any given 3-year interval, one can estimate career productivity surprisingly well. There is, however, an important exception to this rule. The number of predoctoral publications is only modestly correlated with the number of postdoctoral publications, especially at research universities, other doctoral institutions, and elite liberal arts colleges. Publications during the years immediately after completing the doctorate are much more strongly predictive. This finding has implications for faculty hiring. Hiring committees tend to consider early publications an important indicator of a candidate’s potential for original scholarship, but in fact, although the relationship is statistically significant, the number of publications authored or coauthored while in graduate school is a weak (though still valid) predictor of future research activity. However, in considering applications from individuals who have accrued several years of postdoctoral experience, publications to date are quite a good predictor of future scholarship. Two plausible hypotheses may be offered to explain this phenomenon. First, most students are not hired by the universities where they earn their doctorates, so their predoctoral research and postdoctoral research are carried out in different institutions. The extent to which these schools foster scholarship may differ; the increasing consistency of publication counts over the first postdoctoral decade (Table 7) is consistent with acculturation to the current institution. However, the status of one’s graduate school was unrelated to predoctoral publication count. Second, predoctoral research tends to be defined by the interests


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and expertise of one’s mentors. In some cases, this may stultify promising researchers, whose energies are liberated upon graduation; in others, it may enable unimaginative but conscientious individuals to produce several publications inspired and supervised by more creative mentors. The situation at master’s universities and strong (but not elite) 4-year colleges is a bit different. The relationship between the number of predoctoral publications and the number of later publications is stronger than at research universities, other doctoral institutions, and elite liberal arts colleges, but there is no increase in predictive validity after the first few postdoctoral years. Because these schools demand less original research, the extent to which faculty members engage in such research may be mainly a function of personality, acculturation to the graduate school, or both. Historical Trends These data offer only limited support for the contention that levels of scholarly output have increased in recent years. The only supportive finding was that the youngest academics (those who completed their doctorates within the last 5 years) published more as graduate students than had those with 20 or more years of postdoctoral experience. Should this absence of evidence be taken as evidence of absence? Perhaps—but other explanations remain possible. For example, the senior academics in the sample may be the more successful members of their cohorts, less productive scholars having dropped out of the field or accepted early retirement. The status of the risingproductivity hypothesis remains uncertain. Gender Differences The present data indicate that, on average, male faculty members do publish more than their female peers, but the effect size is mostly attributable to career age (females being, on average, about 6.5 years younger to the profession) and institutional setting (males dominating at research universities, females at 4-year colleges). After taking these variables into account, gender explains less than 1% of the variance in publication activity. The present data cannot explain why female academics are less likely to be found in research universities than in 4-year colleges. Although some people might argue that this pattern is caused by gender differences in research potential, it seems more probable that the different reward systems of 4-year colleges versus research universities play the causal role. There may, for example, be a perception (accurate or not) that research universities are less supportive of child rearing (in which many young female academics are likely to be engaged). If such perceptions do play a role, their mechanism of operation remains unclear: Do they influence primarily decisions made by female academics (via negative beliefs about the nature of work at research universities) or decisions made by faculty search committees at research universities (via gender stereotyping and consequent discrimination)?

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Two important unexpected findings that emerged in the gender analyses may bear on this issue. Males had higher publication rates than females solely in the predoctoral period and the first 8 postdoctoral years; this gender gap peaked 3 to 5 years after receipt of the doctoral degree. These years coincide with the search for academic employment and the push for tenure. Thereafter, males tended to decline slightly in productivity, whereas females tended to increase their scholarly output to the point where gender differences disappeared. Furthermore, this early burst of activity among males was largely due to a subset of ambitious individuals who were either moving from less to more prestigious schools or investing years to develop research programs in postdoctoral placements. Males may be able to compete more effectively in the research market during their early careers, but females display a more sustained pattern of improvement over time. It is tempting to attribute this difference to family-related factors. Men are more likely to have highly supportive spouses during those crucial early years, when women may be struggling to balance the competing demands of work and family—but as their children reach school age and become more independent, female academics find themselves freed to engage in more original research.

CONCLUSION

It is high time for scholarly productivity standards to be placed on an empirical footing, so that clear and realistic expectations are available both for individual academics and for departments or schools seeking to make informed decisions. These data provide an important step in the development of such normative standards for academic psychologists. They should assist in decisions about job seeking, initial hiring, promotion, and tenure at various types of schools.

REFERENCES Atkinson, M., & el-Guebaly, N. (1996). Research productivity among PhD faculty members and affiliates responding to the Canadian Association of Professors of Psychiatry and Canadian Psychiatric Association survey. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 41, 509–512. Bieber, J.P., & Blackburn, R.T. (1993). Faculty research productivity 1972-1988: Development and application of constant units of measure. Research in Higher Education, 34, 551–567. Bieschke, K.J., Herbert, J.T., & Bard, C. (1998). Using a social cognitive model to explain research productivity among rehabilitation counselor education faculty. Rehabilitation Education, 12, 1–16. Black, M.M., & Holden, E.W. (1998). The impact of gender upon productivity and satisfaction among medical school psychologists. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 5, 117–131. Burris, V. (2003). The academic caste system: Prestige hierarchies in PhD exchange networks. American Sociological Review, 69, 239– 264.


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Byrnes, J.P., & McNamara, C.C. (2001). Evaluating doctoral programs in the developmental sciences. Developmental Review, 21, 326–354. Cox, W.M., & Catt, V. (1977). Productivity ratings of graduate programs in psychology based on publication in the journals of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 32, 793–813. deMeuse, K.P. (1987). The relationship between research productivity and perceptions of doctoral program quality. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 18, 81–83. Ericsson, K.A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49, 725–747. Fennell, K., & Kohout, J. (2002). Characteristics of graduate departments of psychology: 1999–2000. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Gore, P.A., Murdock, N.L., & Haley, S.J. (1998). Entering the ivory tower: Characteristics of successful counseling psychology faculty applicants. The Counseling Psychologist, 26, 640–657. Hanish, C. (2001). Norms and psychometric properties of indices of scholarly behavior in counseling psychology. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe. Holden, E.W., & Black, M.M. (1996). Psychologists in medical schools—professional issues for the future: How are rank and tenure associated with productivity and satisfaction? Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 27, 407–414. Howard, G.S., Cole, D.A., & Maxwell, S.E. (1987). Research productivity in psychology based on publication in the journals of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 42, 975–986. Jones, L.V., Lindzey, G., & Coggeshall, P.E. (1982). An assessment of research-doctorate programs in the United States: Social and behavioral sciences. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Keith, B., & Babchuk, N. (1998). The quest for institutional recognition: A longitudinal analysis of scholarly productivity and academic prestige among sociology departments. Social Forces, 76, 1495–1533. Lee, W.M. (2000). Publication trends of doctoral students in three fields from 1965-1995. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51, 139–144. Levinson, E.M., Barker, W., & Lillenstein, D. (1994). Publication productivity in selected school psychology journals: A reconsideration based on institutional mission. Psychology in the Schools, 31, 120–127.

Liddle, B.J., Westergren, A.J., & Duke, D.L. (1997). Time allocation and research productivity among counseling faculty. Psychological Reports, 80, 339–344. Ligon, J., & Thyer, B. (2001). Academic affiliations of social work journals authors: A productivity analysis from 1994-1998. Journal of Social Service Research, 28(2), 69–81. National Center for Education Statistics. (2001). Digest of educational statistics: 2001. Washington, DC: Author. Pasework, R.A., Fitzgerald, B.J., & Sawyer, R.N. (1975). Psychology of the scientists: Research activities of clinical, experimental, and physiological psychologists. Psychological Reports, 36, 671–674. Royalty, G.M., & Magoon, T.M. (1985). Correlates of scholarly productivity among counseling psychologists. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 32, 458–461. Schmauder, A.R., Robinson, M.D., & Hartley, J.E. (1999). Psychology research at liberal arts colleges. Teaching of Psychology, 26, 95– 101. Simonton, D.K. (1999). Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. New York: Oxford University Press. Simonton, D.K. (2003). Scientific activity as constrained stochastic behavior: The integration of product, person, and process perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 475–494. Smith, M.C., Plant, M., Carney, R.N., Arnold, C.S., Jackson, A., Johnson, L.S., Lange, H., Mathis, F.S., & Smith, T.J. (2003). Productivity of educational psychologists in educational journals, 1997-2001. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28, 422–430. Thyer, B.A., & Polk, G. (1997). Social work and psychology professors’ scholarly productivity: A controlled comparison of cited journal articles. Journal of Applied Social Sciences, 21, 105–110. Tien, F.F., & Blackburn, R.T. (1996). Faculty rank system, research motivation, and faculty research productivity. Journal of Higher Education, 67, 2–22. U.S. News & World Report. (2003). America’s best colleges 2004. Retrieved April 2004 from www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/ rankings/rankindex_brief.php Xie, Y., & Shauman, K.A. (1998). Sex differences in research productivity: New evidence about an old puzzle. American Sociological Review, 63, 847–870. Webster, R.E., Hall, C.W., & Bolen, L.M. (1993). Publication productivity in selected school psychology journals: 1985–1991. Psychology in the Schools, 30, 136–142.

APPENDIX The 96 schools included in the database are listed by category in Table A1.

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TABLE A1 Schools in the Database, by Category Elite Research Universities/Doctoral–Extensive (n 5 4) Brown University (RI) Cornell University (NY) Princeton University (NJ) Yale University (CT) Strong Research Universities/Doctoral–Extensive (n 5 6) Fordham University (NY) Syracuse University (NY) University of Connecticut (CT) University of Delaware (DE) University of Massachusetts (MA) University of Vermont (VT) Other Research Universities/Doctoral–Extensive (n 5 4) Northeastern University (MA) Temple University (PA) University of Maine (ME) University of Rhode Island (RI) Other Doctoral Institutions/Doctoral–Intensive (n 5 7) Adelphi University (NY) Duquesne University (PA) Hofstra University (NY) Pace University (NY) St. John’s University (NY) University of Hartford (CT) Widener University (PA) Elite Liberal Arts Colleges (n 5 11) Amherst College (MA) Bates College (ME) Bowdoin College (ME) Hamilton College (NY) Haverford College (PA) Colgate University (NY) Middlebury College (VT) Swarthmore College (PA) Trinity College (CT) Wellesley College (MA) Williams College (MA) Strong Master’s Universities/Comprehensive Institutions (n 5 13) Alfred University (NY) Arcadia University (PA) College of New Jersey (NJ) Fairfield University (CT) Ithaca College (NY) Providence College (RI) Quinnipiac University (CT) Rider University (NJ) Rowan University (NJ) Springfield College (MA) St. Bonaventure University (NY) St. Joseph’s University (PA) Villanova University (PA)

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Strong 4-Year Colleges (n 5 16) Albright College (PA) Allegheny College (PA) Gordon College (MA) Hampshire College (MA) Hartwick College (NY) Hobart and William Smith College (NY) Marymount Manhattan College (NY) Merrimack College (MA) Muhlenberg College (PA) Siena College (NY) St. Anselm College (NH) Stonehill College (MA) Washington & Jefferson College (PA) Wells College (NY) Westminster College (MA) Wheaton College (MA) Other Master’s Universities/Comprehensive Institutions (n 5 9) American International College (MA) Central Connecticut State University (CT) Husson College (ME) Kutztown University (PA) Rhode Island College (RI) Salem State College (MA) University of New Haven (CT) University of Southern Maine (ME) Worcester State College (MA) Other 4-Year Colleges (n 5 16) Bay Path College (MA) Becker College (MA) Bloomfield College (NJ) Cazenovia College (NY) Centenary College (NJ) Curry College (MA) Daemen College (NY) Daniel Webster College (NH) Felician College (NJ) Green Mountain College (VT) Hilbert College (NY) Mount Ida College (MA) Neumann College (PA) State University of New York at Old Westbury (NY) University of Maine at Fort Kent (ME) York College of the City University of New York (NY) 2-Year/Community Colleges (n 5 10) Bucks County Community College (PA) Community College of Allegheny County (PA) Community College of Rhode Island (RI) Finger Lakes Community College (NY) Gateway Community College (CT) Housatonic Community College (CT) Manchester Community College (CT) Middlesex County College (NJ) Mohawk Valley Community College (NY) Norwalk Community College (CT)


Volume 1—Number 4

What should GPs be doing about chaperones?

Cholesterol screening--what should we be doing?

Where is mTOR and what is it doing there?

Skin diseases in primary care: what should GPs be doing?

What you should be doing about infection control.

Preoperative blood pressure measurement: what should GPs be doing?

[Geocoding of routine data. Where are my referring physicians and what are my competitors doing?].

What are lipoproteins doing in the brain?

Screening for chlamydia: are you doing it?

Neonatal pressure support ventilation: are we doing what we think we are doing?

Psychologists Doing Empirical Research-Selection at Work!

Complete Revascularization in Patients Undergoing Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for STEMI: Is it Really What We Should Be Doing?

Doing It Yourself.

Sexting Among Married Couples: Who Is Doing It, and Are They More Satisfied?

Meniscal allograft transplantation: how should we be doing it? A systematic review.

The difference between medicine and magic is that magicians know what they are doing.

What should psychiatrists be doing to improve the mental health of the community?

Should we be doing the Norwood procedure sooner?

A decade after to Err is Human: what should health care leaders be doing?

Doing, being and becoming what?

Brid Hendron: 'People talk about stress when what we need to be doing is eliminating it'.

Doing the opposite to what another person is doing.

[Quality of life. Do we know what we are doing?].

Heart failure in 2013: Continue what we are doing to treat HF, but do it better.