RELATIONSHIPS OF GENDER AND CAREER MOTIVATION TO MEDICAL-FACULTY MEMBERS PRODUCTION OF ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Purpose. To evaluate the relationships between both internal and exter nal career-motivating factors and academic productivity (as measured b y the total numbers of publications) among full-time medical faculty, and whether these relationships differ for men and women. Method. In 1 995 a 177-item survey was mailed to 3,013 full-time faculty at 24 rand omly selected U.S. medical schools stratified on area of medical speci alization, length of service, and gender. Two-tailed t-tests and regre ssion analyses were used to study the data. Results. A total of 1,764 faculty were used in the final analyses. The women had published two t hirds as many articles as had the men (mean, 24.2 vs. 37.8). Intrinsic and extrinsic career motivation were rated similarly (on a three-poin t scale) by the women and the men: intrinsic career motivation was rat ed higher (women's mean rating: 2.8, men's mean rating: 2.9) than was extrinsic career motivation (mean rating: 2.1 for both). The main find ings of the regression analyses were (1) intrinsic career motivation w as positively associated, and extrinsic career motivation was negative ly associated, with the number of publications; (2) publication rates were higher for the men than for the women after controlling for caree r motivation; and (3) there was no significant effect of gender on the se relationships. Conclusion. The women faculty published less than di d their men colleagues, but this difference cannot be accounted for by gender differences in career motivation. Further research on institut ional support, family obligations, harassment, and other factors that could affect academic productivity is necessary to understand the gend er difference in numbers of publications.