A study of faculty research productivity

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between and among factors that have been identified in the literature to explain the variance in faculty research performance--psychological individual factors, cumulative advantage, reinforcement, and disciplinary norms. No study had previously incorporated the four explanations for variance in faculty research productivity in a single study.

In order to investigate this problem, the researcher utilized self-report data from the 1989 Carnegie Survey of faculty. Individual research performance of 4380 full-time, tenured and non-tenured faculty employed in Research Universities, Doctorate Granting Universities, Comprehensive Colleges and Universities, and Liberal Arts Colleges was studied by eight correlates of faculty research productivity. These research correlates were institutional affiliation, academic rank, discipline, tenure status, gender, the number of hours per week spent on research and/or scholarly activities, current engagement in scholarly work, and receipt of internal research support in the past twelve months. Four types of publication counts and the receipt of external research support were used as measures of research performance. Data analysis relied on descriptive statistics and stepwise multiple regression techniques.

Results of this study indicated rank and institutional affiliation were significant predictors
(p ≤ .1) for each of the five measures of faculty research productivity. Current engagement in scholarly work, tenure status, and the hours per week spent on research and/or scholarly activities were significant predictors