Productivity of Social Work Doctoral Students on the Academic Job Market

Background:

Recent studies have shown that the social work academic job market has been tightening for several years, even before the Covid-19 crisis. PhD students have been finding it more difficult to get academic jobs, particularly in research-oriented schools of social work. Doctoral students are eager to prepare themselves to be competitive on the job market, yet there have been no recent studies exploring the productivity of graduating PhD students which students can use as benchmark. This study aimed to fill this gap by examining the productivity rates of students on the job market as reported in the compendiums of Curriculum Vitae (CV) that are produced by many PhD programs.

Methods:

This study examined the CV compilations from the 2019-2020 academic year from PhD Programs within the top 36 ranked social work programs in the United States according to US News and World Report. This involved collecting all publicly available CVs, and contacting the PhD Program Directors that did not distribute a CV book or post one on their website, to either obtain the CV compilation or confirm that they did not produce one. Of the 42 PhD Programs ranked among the top 36 social work programs (more than 36 because of ties), 22 produced a CV compilation. There were 122 separate CVs, ranging from 2 to 12 per school, with a mean of 5.55 student CVs per school. The CVs were then analyzed for number and author order of peer-reviewed publications, non-peer reviewed publications, peer-reviewed presentations and independent course sections taught. Comparisons between student CVs ranked 1-10, 11-20, and 21-36 were conducted using a series of Kruskal-Wallis tests.

Results:

Overall, PhD student CVs had a mean of 5.0 peer-reviewed publications per student, with a mean of 1.6 first-authored papers, 1.2 second-authored papers, 1.1 third-authored papers, and 1.0 fourth- or higher authored papers. In addition, CVs had a mean of .5 book chapters and 1.0 reports. The CVs reported a mean of 10.4 peer-reviewed presentations, and 2.9 independent sections taught. A series of Kruskal-Wallis tests reported no differences in productivity among students based on their schools’ ranking for any of the publication averages. However, there were significant differences in peer-reviewed presentations (H(2)-10.52, p=.005), with CVs from the top ten school averaging 9.25, while CVs from schools ranked 21-36 averaging 13.85. Likewise, there were significant differences in independent sections taught (H(2)=12.73.p=.002), with CVs from the top ten ranked schools averaging 2.3 independent sections, while CVs from schools ranked 21-36 averaging 4.63 independent sections.

Implications:

The study, while limited to the student CVs available, provides a rough overview of the productivity of social work PhD students who were on the academic job market in 2019-2020. The findings can help social work doctoral programs prepare current students for academic careers, help doctoral students better prepare for seeking tenure-track positions, and give hiring committees and deans a broader understanding of the productivity rates of students on the job market.