Pre-Admission Student Data Is Associated with Level of Advising Needs for Physical Therapy Students
Purpose/Hypothesis: To identify pre-admission variables of physical therapy students which are associated with high levels of support from faculty advisors during physical therapy school.
Number of Subjects: 202 physical therapy students
Materials and Methods: Students were classified as either typical advising needs or high advising needs based on the following criteria (number of: semesters with GPA below 3.30, oral warnings, written warnings, practical failures, course failures, and documented accommodations). Pre-admission variables included first generation status, under-represented (UR) status, English as second language, Verbal Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores, number of GRE attempts, and Pre-requisite GPA. Binary logistic regression was used to examine the association between pre-admission variables and the level of advising needs. Due to multicollinearity between first generation status and UR status, they were not included in the same model.
Results: Three pre-admission variables were found to be associated with high advising needs, first generation status (OR 3.553, p= .005, 95% CI 1,452, 8.692), Verbal GRE (0.972, p= .013, 95% CI .950, .994), and UR status (OR 2.448, p=.026, 95% CI 1.111, 5.395). The models correctly classified 98% of students who were typical advising needs but only correctly classified 23% of students who were high advising needs.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that pre-admissions variables are associated with level of advising needs during a graduate physical therapy program. First generation status, UR status, and verbal GRE are pre-admission variables that may be supported through pro-active advising and student supports. Further research is needed to examine more robust pre-admission variables that may be associated with advising needs.
Clinical Relevance:The findings from this study provide preliminary information that may provide direction in providing early supports to students during physical therapy school.