Faculty research productivity, 1972-1988: Development of constant units of measure.

This study develops the concept of "real publication units" for measuring college and university faculty research productivity over time. Using 1972 as a standard, a method is presented for adjusting current publication rates to neutralize the effects of (a) changes in the opportunity for scholarly output (scholarly journal space) and (b) changes in the number of faculty in three disciplines (psychology, biology, and English) representing the fields of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Data were obtained from 30 randomly selected journals (two issues per year) for each discipline for the years 1972, 1980, and 1988 yielding a total sample of 540 issues. By assessing the level of competition via a space-faculty ratio in each of the years, insight was gained into fluctuations in the opportunity to publish and into what an article published in 1988 is quantitatively equivalent to when compared to an article that was published in 1972. Results for the disciplines of psychology and biology, in which there was inflation of opportunity for publication between 1972 and 1988, indicate that the total number of articles an individual published in 1988 must be multiplied by.37 for psychology to achieve their 1972 quantitative equivalents. In biology, 1988 articles must be multiplied by.17 to achieve their 1972 equivalents. English, conversely, has experienced a period of deflation, requiring 1988 articles to be multiplied by 1.77 to achieve 1972 equivalent articles. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.PhDEducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103217/1/9034386.pdfDescription of 9034386.pdf : Restricted to UM users only