Balancing the Roles of a Junior Faculty Member: Perspectives from Athletic Training and Physical Therapy

Abstract

Context The role of a faculty member in higher education includes engaging in the 3 facets of research, service, and teaching. Allied health faculty members face additional responsibilities such as administration, patient care, and addressing external accreditation. It is not understood how junior faculty members balance these multiple roles. Objective Gain an understanding of athletic training and physical therapy junior faculty members' ability to find and maintain role balance. Design Qualitative phenomenology. Setting Accredited athletic training and physical therapy programs. Patients or Other Participants Twenty-six participants—13 physical therapists (7 male, 6 female) and 13 athletic trainers (4 male, 9 female)—completed interviews. All participants held academic terminal degrees (21 doctor of philosophy, 5 doctor of education). Main Outcome Measure(s) Data were collected using a one-on-one semistructured phone interview, which was digitally recorded and professionally transcribed. Following saturation, data were analyzed using the interpretive phenomenological analysis method. Trustworthiness was ensured through peer review, multiple analyst triangulation, and member checking. Results Two primary themes were identified: role overload and strategies. Role overload describes overwhelming responsibilities placed on junior faculty and the conflict they face when attempting to balance each of these responsibilities. Strategies articulate the participants' reliance on time management, scheduling and planning, and keeping work and home lives separate. Conclusions Junior faculty members are overloaded by the plethora of responsibilities they must assume, causing role strain. The time-management techniques of scheduling and planning allow junior faculty members to attempt to balance their roles by designating chunks of time for each responsibility. They also keep their work and home lives separate to buffer the strain. Though faculty members have developed adaptations, the primary way to reduce role overload is to decrease the number of duties for which they are responsible.