By Dr. Charles B. “Chuck” Corbin

Any of us who have served in academia, especially those who are at research intensive universities, are aware of the many anti-text arguments. Numerous hours are spent in tenure, promotion, and salary (merit raise) meetings debating what “counts” as scholarship and what doesn’t. Often textbooks are discounted. In a journal article published in Kinesiology Review in 2022, The Importance of Textbooks in Kinesiology, my coauthors, Hyeonho Yu, Diane L. Gill, and I, offer a historical perspective on the role of textbooks in physical education and kinesiology. The historical perspective provides a base for the discussion of topics related to the value of textbooks in our field and more broadly in all fields.

Texts as scholarship. We argue that well-written and well-researched textbooks are good examples of the scholarship of integration. We counter the notion that the only “real scholarship” is the scholarship of discovery. The scholarship of discovery is of little value if it is not disseminated. Texts integrate knowledge and deliver it. Researchers often tout the number of citations as an indicator of scholarship. We offer evidence that textbooks are highly cited.

Texts have “real world” impact. Textbooks have a real-world trickledown effect. Faculty use texts to prepare professionals and to provide students with a liberal education. Texts, in turn, reach thousands of students, clients, and patients. In addition, texts are often used as reference sources.

Texts provide authors, and their institutions, with visibility. We make the case that visibility is often used as an indicator of faculty productivity and that authoring textbooks brings visibility to both the author(s) and their institutions.

Texts as agents of change. Over the past few decades, the amount of new information and scholarship has increased exponentially. Using the field of kinesiology as an example, we argue that texts help instructors stay up to date including informing them about new content and helping them to teach information that was not included in their formal education. Texts and their ever expanding ancillary materials have helped instructors stay up to date. For example, texts and their ancillaries were critical in helping instructors implement online education programs during the COVID epidemic.

Countering the anti-text arguments. Common anti-text themes that we explore and refute include those put forth by Alred and Thelen (1993): “mass marketing work falls outside of the scholar’s proper work, texts merely expand on the body of knowledge rather than contribute through research, text authoring takes time away from ‘real scholarship,’ texts area ‘commercial venture’ rather than scholarship for which authors are commercially rewarded, and texts are not truly peer reviewed.”

In this short blurb it is impossible to reiterate all of the points that we make in our journal article. We chose to use “the importance of textbooks” as our title after considering “textbooks as scholarship” because we think textbooks are good examples of scholarship, but much more. We focused our writing on the field of kinesiology. However, we believe that our paper has implications for those in other fields as well. Details concerning how to counter anti-text arguments, regardless of area of specialty, are provided.

Kinesiology Review and Human Kinetics Publishers kindly granted our request to make our paper available as an “open access” article so that it can be easily shared. We are pleased to report that thousands have already accessed the article, and we have received e-mails from instructors who report using the open access article in their classes. Others report using the article to support the value of their texts in academic settings. We invite you to use the article for any and/or all of these purposes.

In summary, “We contend that textbooks are worthy of consideration as legitimate forms of scholarship (the scholarship of integration). In addition, they provide visibility and real-world impact for the field of kinesiology (substitute your field). Over time, textbooks, and associated ancillary materials, have made it possible for faculty in institutions of higher learning to adapt and move the field (your field) forward (p. 267).”

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Dr. Charles B. “Chuck” Corbin is Professor Emeritus in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University. He has published more than 200 journal articles and is the senior author, sole author, contributor to, or editor of more than 100 books including Concepts of Physical Fitness (17th ed.), winner of the TAA McGuffey Award; Concepts of Fitness and Wellness (13th ed.); Health Opportunities in Physical Education (2nd ed.); and Fitness for Life (7th ed.), winner of the TAA Texty Award. His books are the most widely adopted college and secondary school texts in the area of fitness and wellness.

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References

Alred, G.J., & Thelen, E.A. (1993). Are textbooks contributions to scholarship? College Composition and Communication, 44(4), 466–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/358382

Corbin, C. B., Yu, H. & Gill, D. (2022). The importance of textbooks in kinesiology. Kinesiology Review. 11(3), 261-269. https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2022-0001.

Open Access URL: https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/krj/11/3/article-p261.xml