THE SCHOLARLY PRODUCTIVITY OF INBRED AND NONINBRED FULL-TIME DOCTORALLY - PREPARED NURSING FACULTY IN TEACHING POSITIONS IN THE SOUTH.
Contributors: Georgia State University.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 99
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Purpose. Academic inbreeding has traditionally been viewed as a detrimental practice of recruitment within higher education. The major controversy evolves around the premise that inbred faculty are less productive or scholarly than their noninbred counterparts. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine differences of scholarly productivity between full-time doctorally-prepared inbred and noninbred nursing faculty. The specific objectives were to demonstrate that, when compared to noninbred faculty, full-time doctorally-prepared inbred nursing faculty: (1) Publish less; (2) Publish fewer referred publications; (3) Are cited less; (4) Presented fewer papers or posters at the 1983 and 1985 Council of Nurse Researchers Conferences; (5) Presented less at the 1983, 1984, and 1985 Southern Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing Annual Conferences; (6) Recognized less through 1985 membership in the American Academy of Nursing. (7) Are less likely to be employed at ranked institutions.

Methods and Procedures. According to a 1985 SREB regional survey, there are 607 doctorally-prepared nurse educators employed mostly in 41 accredited undergraduate and graduate schools of nursing. Deans of the selected institutions were asked to complete a demographic data collection form about their faculty. From the known population data were collected about 321 nurse educators. For each faculty member inbreeding status was determined. Data were then collected from library sources and other publications about seven measures of scholarly productivity. The one-tailed t-test set at alpha level p =.05 and the chi-square test were used to perform the statistical analysis.

Results. No significant difference in scholarly productivity was found between inbred and noninbred nursing faculty. Of the seven variables assessed, only institutional ranking and employment of inbred faculty showed any suggestion of significance. Furthermore, the overall productivity of each group was low. However, frequency of inbreeding in nursing education was not as great as reported in a previous study.

Conclusions. Finding no significant differences in the scholarly productivity of full-time doctorally-prepared nursing faculty challenges the negative perceptions held about academic inbreeding. However, it will take more than the assessment of scholarly involvement to dispel the negative image of academic inbreeding. Only through additional research will the question of difference, based on academic origin, be answered.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-07, Section: A, page: 1668.

Thesis (PH.D.)--GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY, 1987.

School code: 0079.