Types and Quality of Physical Therapy Research Publications: Has There Been a Change in the Past Decade?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: To describe and compare the type and quality of evidence published in physical therapy (PT) journals during two time periods (2000-2002 vs. 2010-2012) and to explore scientific editors' opinions on changes in the types and quality of articles. METHODS: A quantitative, longitudinal, retrospective journal review was used to categorize and assess the methodological rigour of items published in four PT journals using the Hedges Project. A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional survey explored the opinions of scientific editors. Percentages and frequencies of article types (as defined by the Hedges Project criteria), items passing rigour, and editor responses were calculated. Statistical significance of differences in article type and rigour between the two time periods was determined using Fisher's Exact Test. RESULTS: There was a significant increase in original studies and review articles from 2000-2002 to 2010-2012 (p<0.001, p=0.002, respectively). The overall pass rate for rigour was 33.3% in 2000-2002 and 42.5% in 2010-2012, showing a significant increase (p=0.019). The majority of editors reported an increase in systematic reviews, qualitative designs, and randomized controlled trials and believed that quality had improved by 2010-2012. CONCLUSION: From 2000-2002 to 2010-2012, the quality of articles published in PT journals improved and the proportion of original studies and review articles increased.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.164 | 0.480 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.021 | 0.045 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.012 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".