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PREDICTING ACADEMIC, CLINICAL, AND LICENSURE EXAM PERFORMANCE IN AN ENTRY-LEVEL MASTER DEGREE PROGRAM IN PHYSICAL THERAPY. Thieman T, Weddle M, Moore M; College of St. Catherine, Minneapolis, MN, USA. mamoore@stkate.edu. INTRODUCTION: Physical therapy schools employ a variety of admissions criteria to select qualified candidates who will succeed academically and professionally. Outcome variables of concern include scholastic achievement, clinical competence, and successful passage of the licensure examination. The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of one set of admission criteria to a master’s program in physical therapy to predict graduate program grade point average (GPA), applied skills as measured by the Clinical Performance Instrument (CPI), and National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) scores. SUBJECTS: A retrospective study focused on 121 students who earned a entry-level master’s degree in physical therapy (MPT) at the College of St. Catherine from 1998 to 2001. Procedures for procuring student records were approved by the college’s Institutional Review Board & Student Records Office. METHOD: Admission criteria included overall and prerequisite GPAs, Graduate Records Exam (GRE) scores, and Admission Committee evaluations of multiple factors. Outcome variables were final cumulative MPT GPA, CPI, and NPTE scores. ANALYSIS: Descriptive statistics, analyses of variance, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple stepwise regression analyses were conducted using the MINITAB statistical software package. RESULTS: As expected, the best predictors of MPT grades were preadmission grades. Together with GRE scores, undergraduate grades accounted for 37% of the variability in graduate grades. MPT GPA was the best predictor of NPTE scores, but it accounted for less than 10% of the variability. CPI scores increased significantly across four placements over a two-year period, but were not predictable above chance levels by any of the present variables. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Academic outcomes of MPT grades can be moderately predicted using traditional admissions criteria. However, licensure exam scores appear to be only weakly predictable. The total absence of predictability of clinical performance, as measured by the CPI, is problematic and demands closer evaluation. Restricted ranges in both the admissions and outcome variables contributed to the limited predictive power of the present admission criteria. FUNDING SOURCE: None.
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