Publication Rates for Tenure-Track Faculty Members in Kinesiology and Exercise Science Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities

Over the past several decades, the scholarship requirements for faculty at teaching-intensive institutions have increased and are used in the tenure and promotion evaluation process. Thus, in order to establish some normative data for faculty and administrators at these institutions we evaluated publication rates among kinesiology departments within liberal arts (LA) institutions and determined what factors might be associated with publication rates across institutions. Departments were identified from the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and members of the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC). Web of Science, SportDiscus, and PubMed were searched for research published between 2009 and 2018. Demographic information for each school included extramural funding, endowment, number of undergraduate students, and the presence of graduate programs. Of the 116 LA kinesiology departments identified, the mean publication rate across the entire sample was 0.09 ± 0.18 publications/year/tenure-track faculty member. Multiple regression analysis yielded the model: publication rate = (0.266 × endowment) + (0.406 × extramural funding) + 0.057 (R[superscript 2][subscript adj] = 0.333, SEE = 0.181, p < 0.001). In the 10 R1 kinesiology departments examined, the mean publication rate was 1.97 ± 1.33 publications/year/tenure-track faculty member. Scholarly activity in kinesiology departments at LA institutions is substantially lower than has been reported for their counterparts at R1 institutions. And access to extramural funding is a primary predictor of scholarly productivity. While publishing one peer-reviewed manuscript every 3 years at an R1 institution would likely be unacceptable for promotion and tenure, this publication rate would be in the 90th percentile among LA kinesiology faculty.