The role of higher education faculty is generally described as having three areas of responsibility: teaching, service, and research. Teaching is not just contact hours in a classroom. It also includes preparing course materials, mentoring, and advising students. Serving on department or institutional committees contributes to the operations and culture of the institution. Service in academic or professional organizations contributes to the faculty member’s discipline or profession. Of the three areas of faculty responsibility, research is less structured.

Engaging in research helps faculty keep abreast of developments and acquire new knowledge to enhance their teaching. A faculty member’s research portfolio contributes to the body of knowledge in their discipline. When a faculty member is successful in obtaining external research and external grants, it brings revenue into the institution allowing release time for the research. During annual evaluations, faculty account for time spent and work completed in each area.

The different dimensions of teaching, service, and research are necessary for higher education faculty to become scholars. Faculty in massage therapy education programs may not be subject to the types of evaluations as other areas of higher education. But they are the highest level of faculty in the massage therapy profession. They are the teachers and advisers of massage therapy students. Committee service likely exists in massage schools, programs, and organizations in the massage profession. Massage therapy faculty are not well-represented in massage research.

The use of the term massage faculty is deliberate because it denotes scholarship. A scholar is more than a teacher. On a simple level, teaching is imparting knowledge. Although anyone who calls themselves a teacher would argue they do more than just teaching.. In defining scholarship, Boyer¹ wrote: “the work of the scholar also means…building bridges between theory and practice, and communicating one's knowledge effectively to students.” Scientific, clinical, educational, and behavioral research are constantly providing insight into the human body and mind. Massage therapy faculty who stay up-to-date on information are engaged in life-long learning. This presents an opportunity to disseminate information needed for our profession by being scholars.

Evidence-Based Content

The prep work massage faculty use for their teaching can be turned into scholarship as a contribution to the larger body of knowledge on massage. There are two fundamental approaches to include evidence-based content in teaching

1.   Background research questions – these seek answers to general information about anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology (risk factors, signs, symptoms, diseases, or disorders.) Background research can also help to explain how a massage technique produces an effect on the human mind or body. This type of research can be used to explore best practices, or traditional assumptions, from a critical perspective. Massage faculty who look to basic and applied science resources for updated information use it to revise and/or update course materials. This type of research is well-suited to an overview—either as an article or a conference presentation.

2.   Foreground research questions -  Inquiry into information that will influence a clinical decision. For massage that could be whether massage would be safe in a particular situation, have any effect on a sign or symptom, or whether one massage technique would be different from another. Massage therapy faculty do this type of research when updating massage treatment protocols and reviewing student work in the clinic. Reviews of outcome research literature that assess effects of massage are used to answer foreground research questions. Gathering studies on effects of massage and analyzing them can provide insight into potential contraindications, precautions, or treatment approaches (depending on the study designs.) A foreground research question can be turned into a review article for publication. This is an area where massage faculty scholarship would be very helpful to the body of massage research by helping to reveal gaps in translational research.

Using evidence-based content in massage education provides massage faculty with a foundation to contribute to massage scholarship and advance their knowledge. Background or foreground research that faculty are engaging in to update their teaching can become a collaborative activity through journal clubs in the traditional journal club model where two related research or professional articles are summarized, compared, and contrasted in a group discussion. Hosting a journal club once a semester helps encourage massage faculty to stay current with research literature. It also gives faculty a chance to share what they have learned as they synthesize information from research and update their course materials.

Teaching & Learning

Faculty development activities in higher education are intended to help junior faculty become scholars and grow into their role as teachers. In institutions with dedicated centers for teaching and learning, trainings and workshops may be offered. For massage faculty that lack those types of resources, faculty development with a focus on teaching can be created. Reports on sessions designed to get feedback on grading rubrics, learning activities, or review curriculum can be turned into scholarly presentations or publications. Sharing knowledge about teaching methods can verify what works well and identify areas that need better solutions.

Education of massage therapists has the same components as other health professions: didactic, clinical, and professionalism. Balancing these components in an optimal way is an ongoing question that is being explored across the health professions. Massage therapy faculty are living in the exploration every day in their work. This can be turned into scholarship by reviewing educational research as well as analyzing and writing about their experiences.

Massage involves cognitive and sensory learning: hands on courses involve visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning that is integrated with knowledge from didactic courses. Balancing cognitive and sensory learning is likely a challenge faced by massage faculty. The framework provided by Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences² could be used to analyze optimal balance of instructional activities to help massage students employ critical thinking skills to design, deliver, and assess effects of treatments.

Integrated learning is a hot topic in health professions education. Evidence suggests that curriculum integration has a positive impact on clinical reasoning.³ Worth noting: this study used a sample of massage therapy students and was published in a medical education journal.

Primary Research

Unless massage faculty have adequate training and credentials in research, designing and conducting research on massage is very difficult. It would require skills to develop a research protocol, ethics training, human subjects review, and a research team. But massage faculty can seek partnerships with researchers. Faculty at a college, university, or academic health center may be willing to serve as a principal investigator on a research study. In some cases, researchers are looking for ideas and projects to train graduate students in research. Small projects like pilot studies or surveys fit the timeline for graduate student projects.

If massage faculty find researchers willing to collaborate, massage schools and programs bring an asset to the negotiating table for potential research projects: facilities, interventions, and clients who may be willing to serve as research subjects. These partnerships take work to execute, but can be useful in designing small studies on topics relevant to the massage profession.

Another opportunity for primary research involving massage faculty is secondary data analysis. The field of biomedical informatics is making great strides in harnessing health data. Massage school clinics provide a valuable service to students through training and to clients who receive treatments. Data collected from clients has significant potential to contribute to massage evidence. Data from massage clinics that falls within meaningful use⁴ could provide critical insight into effects of different type, intensity, duration, and frequency of massage.

Teacher or Scholar?

The research work conducted by massage faculty is important. Becoming a massage scholar is not a burden of more work; it’s a mindset. When massage faculty do scholarly work to prepare for teaching, the work is halfway done. It is likely that other massage faculty are doing research along similar topic lines. Sharing the results can empower massage faculty to recognize their important role as massage scholars. It could also promote better connection within our profession. Building bridges between theory and practice is needed for both clinical massage and for massage education.