PHYS THER
Vol. 88, No. 4, April 2008, pp. 540-541
DOI: 10.2522/ptj.2008.88.4.540
Author Response
We appreciate the interest in our work and the insights and commentary offered by Warden, Maher, and Bennett and Ohtake. We also appreciate this opportunity to respond. As Warden and Maher state, we acknowledged our limitations in the manuscript. We believe the heart of the issue is the conflict implicit in the responses by Warden and Maher, respectively. That conflict seems to hinge around whether this work fell short because it failed to sufficiently acknowledge research productivity within physical therapy or succeeded in demonstrating that programs vary dramatically in research productivity.
Our purpose in this study was to establish a baseline for research productivity for the profession at a critical juncture in its history. Bennett and Ohtake do not believe that we have met our purpose and point out that our method misattributed citations to their program. In the manuscript, we acknowledge that attribution of a citation was at times difficult. Had we examined our findings by author and crossreferenced the results with CAPTE listings, we might have been able to more finely differentiate our results. However, this approach also has limits. For example, identical surnames or inconsistent use of initials might make it difficult to identify a particular author. This approach also might eliminate citations when the first author is a student at an academic program and, therefore, result in an underrepresentation of that program's publication productivity.
Ultimately, our desire is to use models such as those identified in our paper to inform strategies for growing research across programs. We see no evidence suggesting that our methodology was selectively biased against programs with little or no publication history in the time period studied. We can only reaffirm the messages reiterated by Maher: publication productivity varies widely among academic programs, and many programs are apparently struggling to contribute to the body of knowledge of the profession.
Absolutely the profession should be proud of its investment in research. We submit, however, that the profession benefits more from a focus on how we can continue to grow rather than on why we should be proud. Although we recognize the limitations, we believe that science is built on replication and refinement, and we hope that our work at the very least provides a foundation for replication and refinement.
Randy R Richter,
Sarah L Schlomer,
Mary M Krieger and
William Siler
RR Richter, PT, PhD, is Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, Saint Louis University
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This letter was posted as a Rapid Response on February 29, 2008, at www.ptjournal.org.
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Copyright © 2008 by the American Physical Therapy Association.
