A Reflection on Disciplinary Nature and the Status of Physical Therapy Scholarship

Background and Purpose. A critical question for the profession of physical therapy is whether retention of a greater number of doctorally prepared faculty members is enough to foster sufficient scholarship within the physical therapy academy. The purposes of this paper are to present the position that structural and cultural characteristics of the academic discipline of physical therapy create barriers to the scholarly productivity of physical therapy faculty, and to argue that advancement of the scholarly agenda requires strategies to foster communication and collaboration across those barriers. Position and Rationale. Based on several conceptual models of disciplinary structure and culture, I identify physical therapy as a nonparadigmatic, applied, relational human services field. Collaboration, communication, and an intrinsic drive for productivity in research are problematic for faculty in low-consensus fields like physical therapy. Varying natures of disciplinary subject matter, inquiry paradigms, and cultural characteristics may limit the abilities of scholars to work together efficiently and effectively. Promotion of scholarly work by academic physical therapists will require identification of a range of influential factors inherent in disciplinary characteristics and structure, and development of strategies to overcome barriers to scholarly productivity. Discussion and Conclusion. A necessary extension of the Clinical Research Agenda is a “research facilitation agenda” that provides strategies for fostering communication and cooperation across substantively and structurally disparate disciplines. Cooperative efforts by the Education and Research sections of APTA and efforts to support the development of junior faculty are important to the development of the professional science.