In examining the bibliographies of several prominent psychologists, we see that some careers are devoted entirely to research or to application or to theory or to a mixture. Other careers, though, change from one path to another, for example, from predominently research to theory or from basic to applied research. I am searching for materials that describe and analyze the career paths of scientists in general (e.g., in the natural and social sciences) along these or other dimensions (e.g., changes in the number of publications over time, in publication outlet, etc.). I would welcome a lead into such a lierature.

-- Edward K. Morris (ekm@ukans.edu), March 16, 2001

Answers

Hi Edward, sorry can't help you with the lit review, I just wanted to add another category to your search, it seems to me that some go into administration also. With conversations I've had with others on this topic, I've heard a friend say that he thought you could plot a publishing curve on most careers. He thought people did a thesis which launched them on a path of research and a number of papers followed and then slowly they stop publishing. Another commonality seemed to be that folks received their training in a science, and then they published atomistic studies and then after mid-career, they became more politically minded and wrote then to establish a following for their ideas.

If you look at Charles Strother of University of Washington, then you see a career that begins in research and the clinic, then he becomes the director of programs, but then he shifts to the building of a great institution (the Center for Child Development and Mental Retardation). The catch 22 is that the work that went into building that institution isn't going to be found in your normal journals so unless someone clues the researcher in, how do you know about it. In that case, all I can think of is you would have to look at institutions that are somehow associated with psychology, then maybe a person would look in the science citation index and see how many papers the institution was putting out and the size of their grants and if they had a psychologist at the helm. Again, Edwin Guthrie, a learning theory psychologist, finished out his career as Dean of Science. Interesting subject. Another interesting aspect of psychology careers, I've heard that only about 3% of those who grad with PhDs go on to do research. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), March 19, 2001.