PERCEPTIONS AND DEMOGRAPHICS OF TRANSITION DOCTOR OF PHYSICAL THERAPY STUDENTS. J. T. Noteboom*1; Doug L. Weeks1; Caroline Goulet2 1. Department of Physical Therapy, Regis University, Denver, CO; 2. Department of Physical Therapy, Creighton University, Omaha, NE PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions and demographics of students enrolled in Transition DPT programs in two different states. BACKGROUNDS/SIGNIFICANCE: With larger number of physical therapists considering transition DPT programs it is important to characterize the demographics and expectations of those already enrolled in such programs for program planning and marketing purposes. SUBJECTS: 104 students (response rate = 68%) from two Transition DPT programs, Creighton University (n=56) and Regis University (n=48), completed the survey. METHODS AND MATERIALS: An online survey was conducted from August to October, 2003. Students who were accepted into each program, and had completed at least two courses were invited to participate. Following mailing of the initial survey, participants were sent two reminder emails, each two weeks apart, if they had not responded to the initial request to participate. ANALYSES: Data were analyzed using frequency distributions. Descriptive statistics were calculated using SPSS, v. 12. RESULTS: When comparing students from the two programs, the Creighton students were older, had more experience, were more likely to have a BS level professional degree, and spent less time working on their course work each week. For all other questions, the student responses were similar. Students accessed their online course from home (90%) and at work (24%), with 46% students using broadband internet access. Eighty percent of respondents accessed their online course at least 4 times per week, with 45% of students spending up to 3 hours working in their online course and 32% working more than 4 hours online each week. Not only did a high number of respondents implement new skills (90%) and knowledge (94%) from their DPT programs in their clinical setting, they also frequently initiated changes in the practice of their colleagues (83%). Interestingly, when ask about feeling isolated in online learning settings, only 5% indicated feeling isolated, while 63% responded that they did not feel isolated. When asked to identify what contributed most to their learning, students responded that they learned more from interactions with their classmates (52%) than they did from independent work (27%) or from interactions with the online faculty (21%). Overall, there was very high satisfaction with the Transition programs as 97% of respondents would recommend the program to their colleagues. CONCLUSIONS: Although students from two different Transition DPT program differed in some demographics, each Transition program influenced the clinical practice of the students and that of their colleagues. FUNDING SOURCE: None. KEYWORDS: Transition DPT, student perceptions Copyright 2009 by the American Physical Therapy Association. Requests for reprints should be directed to the corresponding author of the article. Educators, students, and other academic customers may receive permission to reprint copyrighted material from Physical Therapy (ISSN 1538-6724) by contacting the Copyright Clearance Center Inc, 222 Rosewood Dr, Danvers, MA 01923. Other types of customers who want permission to reprint should contact the APTA Editorial Office, Attn: Physical Therapy.