Scholarly productivity: A survey of nursing faculty researchers

The scholarly productivity, and factors associated with it, of leading nurse researchers at NLN-accredited schools of nursing was examined. The sample consisted of 148 doctorally prepared nurse researchers who were identified as leading researchers by their respective deans. To assess the impact of three sets of factors (cumulative advantage, psychological/individual, and reinforcement) on research articles published in the last three years, the 96 tenured respondents were subdivided into four groups on the basis of the number of research publications reported. One-way analysis of variance showed that the highest producers (eight or more published research articles) were motivated by peer pressure outside their institution, as well as by research team members, and displayed a greater preference for conducting and writing research than nonproducers (no published research in the last three years). High producers coauthored papers with mentors in graduate school, spent less time in teaching and more in administration, and tended to publish more before their doctorate than nonproducers. These results were descriptively compared with correlates of publication productivity for faculty in other disciplines. Implications for administrators in nursing schools include encouraging faculty to establish research networks and supportive research teams, encouraging research and publishing at early stages of a faculty member's career, and adjusting teaching loads in order to provide time for research and writing.