Does Faculty Makeup Affect Graduation Rates or the Prevalence of Graduates of Color?
Purpose/Hypothesis: The number of physical therapy (PT) programs continues to rise, along with the number of faculty vacancies.1 Additionally, the PT profession also suffers from a shortage of ethnically diverse providers.2 As of 2013, 1.2% of American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) members were African American and 2.4% were Hispanic or Latino.3 It is possible that increasing total tuition costs, increasing duration of programs, and a shortage of faculty of color are likely to perpetuate the lack of diversity within the physical therapy workforce.2 This study sought to observe the trends in physical therapy faculty members over time and to understand how those trends correlated with changes in graduation rates and graduates of color.
Number of Subjects: Data was captured from the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education’s (CAPTE) Annual Accreditation Report from 231 physical therapy programs from 2008-2017.
Materials and Methods: Panel data was collected retrospectively and analyzed using a random effects model to estimate the effects that various faculty and program characteristics have on graduation rates and the percentage of graduates of color that a program produced. This methodology is novel in studying PT program outcomes because, unlike cross-sectional data, it includes both within-and between-program estimators and it accounts for historical time trends.4
Results: For a one percentage point increase in core faculty members who had a funded grant, a program could expect a 1.7% increase in graduation rates. Similarly, for a one percentage point increase in faculty time devoted to scholarship, a program could expect graduation rates to rise by 0.17%. In contrast, for a 1% increase in peer-reviewed publications per faculty FTE, a program can expect to have 4% fewer graduates. A one percentage point increase in faculty of color was associated with a 33% increase in graduates of color.
Conclusions: Student time with faculty on scholarly efforts could increase retention, as has been shown in the undergraduate literature. However, student retention may decline as the emphasis on faculty publications increases. This somewhat conflicts with prior findings5 that did not control for faculty size, indicating that an increase in publications while faculty size remains stagnant could negatively impact student success. The strong, positive correlation between faculty of color and students of color is not surprising and has been documented numerous times within undergraduate and dentistry literature.6,7 Likely, prospective students of color are more attracted to programs with faculty of color.
Clinical Relevance: Notably, the other faculty characteristics tested did not correlate with graduation rates. This includes the percentage of tenured faculty, student to core faculty ratio, percentage of ABPTS-certified specialists on faculty, percentage of part-time faculty, or percentage of faculty with a terminal degree. This study also highlights a possible recruitment strategy for students of color—to demonstrate a more inclusive atmosphere by hiring faculty members of color.