Scholarly productivity publication outlets and article themes of

University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2002 Scholarly productivity, publication outlets and article themes of faculty in APA-accredited school psychology programs : 1995-1999 Robin M. Carper University of Tennessee Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Carper, Robin M., "Scholarly productivity, publication outlets and article themes of faculty in APA- accredited school psychology programs : 1995-1999., University of Tennessee, 2002.edu/utk_graddiss/6212 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.

To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Robin M. Carper entitled "Scholarly productivity, publication outlets and article themes of faculty in APA-accredited school psychology programs : 1995-1999." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Robert Williams, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: William Calhoun, Tom George, Chris Skinner Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Robin M.

Carper entitled “Scholarly Productivity, Publication Outlets and Article Themes of Faculty in APA-Accredited School Psychology Programs: 1995-1999.” I have examined the final paper copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Robert Williams, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: (. William Calhoun «flflMfl/WV/ fin Tom George // [5f Chris' smer Accepted for the Council: Gum Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Wests 2002b Scholarly Productivity, Publication Outlets and Article Themes of Faculty in APA-Accredited School Psychology Programs: 1995-1999 A Dissertation presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Robin M. Carper August 2002 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Connie Hansel and Ronald A.

Skrutski whose constant love, support, and encouragement helped me reach and achieve my goals And to my husband. Brian, thank you for your encouragement, patience. and understanding, but most of all. thanks for your love Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and thanks to several people.

I am especially grateful to Dr. Robert Williams, my committee chairperson, for his dedication and support throughout the dissertation process. His commitment to the quality and completion of this dissertation was significant especially since we worked long-distance via e-mail and fax machines. I also would like to thank the remaining members of my committee, Dr.

William Calhoun, Dr. Tom George, and Dr. Chris Skinner, for their support and valuable suggestions. Additionally, I am indebted to all members of my committee for their remarkable availability especially for my defense.

In addition to my committee, others have assisted me in the completion of this study. Thanks to Monica Wallace for her assistance in the reliability of article abstract themes. A special thanks to Gale Brewer for her help with the formatting and text of the document. I also would like to thank Becky Bledsoe for her positivity and encouragement, as well as her assistance with the final stages of the manuscript.

I also would like to thank my family and friends for their support during these many years. A special thanks to my parents who have instilled in me the drive to achieve and belief that I can accomplish anything. Lastly, I am especially thankful for my husband, Brian, whose daily love and support encouraged me to press forward. He was always there for me and even held me accountable for doing work on my dissertation.

I owe him a special thanks for all of his hard work and help during the last week of revisions! We have often shared with one another the saying, “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But most of all the world needs dreamers who do!” I did it! iii Abstract This study examined the scholarly productivity of faculty in school psychology programs accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) from 1995-1999. In addition, the author identified the major journals in which faculty published their work and the article themes for the most productive programs. Faculty members’ productivity ratings were based on journal article abstracts identified in the PsycINFO database.

Productivity ratings were computed primarily via an authorship credit formula in which first authors receive the greatest amount of credit and succeeding authors earn decreasing amounts of credit for publications. However, the actual number of publications also was computed for comparison with the authorship credit ratings. The analysis of the principal journal outlets for school psychology faculty profiled the primary journals in which school psychology faculty published their work. Data were divided into two journal sets: primary and secondary.

The primary set included only the major school psychology journals and the secondary set included journals outside of the major school psychology journals. An analysis of the themes of school psychology faculty article abstracts also was conducted for the ten programs having the highest productivity ratings during the 1995- 1999 time period. The articles were categorized by article titles and available abstracts. The schema used to evaluate the article themes targeted four broad themes: assessment, consultation, intervention, and professional issue.

The results indicated that the most productive school psychology programs were essentially the same whether measured by authorship credit or number of publications. Texas A&M University, Lehigh University, and Louisiana State University (LSU) were iv the three most productive programs, respectively. Also, school psychology faculties published more frequently per journal within school psychology journals than in non- school psychology journals. Nonetheless, significant contributions were made to non- school psychology journals.

The major publication outlets outside of traditional school psychology journals included journals focusing on behavior, assessment, education, neuropsychology, special education, psychiatry, and clinical child psychology. The most prominent theme of articles published by top ten school psychology faculties from 1995-1999 was professional issues. The articles on professional issues most frequently were descriptive studies. Intervention articles surpassed assessment articles in total number of publications, whereas consultation articles were least emphasized overall.

Table of Contents Chapter 1 Background for the Research. 1 School Psychology’s Publication Literature. 1 Statement of the Problem. 6 Purpose of the Study.

19 Limitations of the Data Collection .21 Program Scholarship Rankings. 21 Publication Outlets of School Psychology Program Faculties. 29 Article Themes of the Ten Most Productive School Psychology Program Faculties. 41 The Most Prolific School Psychology Program Faculties.

42 vi Ranking Comparisons with US. News and World Report .44 Major Publication Outlets. 45 Major Publication Themes of Leading Programs. 46 Limitations of the Study.

51 Broad Implications of Study. 68 E-mail Message to School Psychology Department/Program Heads Requesting Core School Psychology Faculty Members. 72 Coding System and Definitions of Assessment, Intervention Consultation, and Professional Issues Themes. 78 vii List of Tables Table Ranking of School Psychology Programs in Terms of Authorship Productivity Ratings from 1995-1999 in All Journals (primary and secondary)22 Ranking of School Psychology Programs in Terms of Frequency of Publications from 1995-1999 in All Journals (primary and secondary)25 Top Ten Ranking Comparisons of School Psychology Programs in Terms of Productivity Ratings and Frequency of Publications from 1995-1999.

28 Article Themes of the Top Ten School Psychology Programs from 1995-1999. 35 Subcategories of the Four Broad Themes of the Top Ten School Psychology Programs from 1995-1999. 37 viii Chapter 1 Background for the Research Professional contributions and scholarship of university faculty have long been chronicled throughout higher education (Cox & Catt, 1977; Endler, Rushton, & Roediger, 1978; Gordon & Purvis, 1991; Little, 1997; Muffo, Mead, & Bayer, 1987; Smith, Roche, & Snizek, 1980). Various approaches have been employed to assess the productivity and scholarly activity of university faculty and departments.

The frequency of publications is most notably used to represent productivity. Smith et al. (1980) noted that “professional productivity, normally defined in terms of one’s publication record, has become a necessary condition for both individual researchers and departments to achieve recognition” (p. Publication records of faculty in school psychology programs have been used to identify the most exemplary programs in terms of research (Webster, Hall, & Bolen, 1993).

In addition to frequency of publications, another measure of faculty productivity has been computation of authorship credit (Howard, Cole, & Maxwell, 1987). This formula assigns greatest credit to first authors and decreasing amounts of credit to remaining authors. This type of productivity rating provides an alternate way to define institutional productivity and was utilized in this study. School Psychology ’5 Publication Literature Research studies on school psychology articles have traditionally selected a handful of premier journals in the field and evaluated them cover-to-cover to note authorship, university, topic, or productivity (Clark & Reynolds, 1981; Cox & Catt, 1977; Little, 1997; O’Callaghan, 1974; Skinner, Robinson, Brown, & Cates, 1999; Webster et al.

A review of the literature is presented in terms of productivity, publication outlets, and publication trends/topics. Productivity and publication outlets have been examined concurrently in much of the related research. Most often, researchers examined productivity based on pre- selected journals. Therefore, publication outlets were pre-determined.

Past research regarding scholarly productivity also has included a variety of definitions and methods. Cox and Catt (1977) analyzed productivity ratings of graduate programs based on publications in thirteen APA journals. These APA journals were examined cover-to- cover to determine the frequency of articles contributed by each college and university from the time period 1970-1975. Credit was assigned proportionately in cases of multiple authorship.

Additionally, the average number of publications per faculty member was calculated based on the total number of publications and size of faculty from each program or university. Results were reported for the leading contributors to all thirteen APA journals, leading contributors to each of the thirteen journals, and leading contributors to the thirteen APA journals in terms of average number of publications per faculty member. Results were compared to past reputational rankings of programs/universities, which revealed that productivity ratings yielded significantly different results. In fact, the authors reported that productivity ratings were more objective measures of scholastic productivity than were reputational rankings.

(1987) expanded the research findings from Cox and Catt (1977) by examining research productivity in the thirteen journals of APA from the time period 1976-1985. Estimates of productivity were based on productivity ratings from an entire 2 institution, not just the psychology department. Credit was assigned proportionately based on an authorship credit formula. Results were reported for overall productivity, which was defined as the sum of productivity for all thirteen journals per school.

Results correlated highly with Cox and Catt’s research, as well as with other scholarly productivity articles. Additionally, results from the Howard et al. (1987) study correlated highly with reputational rankings, which differed from Cox and Catt’s (1977) low correlations with reputational rankings. Publication productivity also was examined by Webster et al.

(1993) in three school psychology journals, Journal ofSchool Psychology, Psychology in the Schools, and School Psychology Review, plus two additional journals (Professional School Psychology and Journal ofPsychoeducational Assessment) for the time period 1985- 1991. Productivity was defined as the frequency of publications per institution and authorship credit. The top 50 institutions were listed. Results indicated that the most frequent contributors to the school psychology literature were the University of Nebraska, LSU, Texas A&M University, University of Texas, and Memphis State University.

Little (1997) investigated the top contributors to the school psychology literature from 1987-1995.