The Relationship of Preadmission Academic Variables to Academic Performance in a Doctor of Physical Therapy Program

Many health profession education programs have used predictive analytics to identify risk for academic difficulty among applicants and to identify the attributes most important for successfully completing the rigorous academic expectations to produce successful healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to determine if select pre-admission academic factors were associated with academic performance in a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program.

Admission and academic performance data were collected on 160 students in the first 5 years of a DPT program and tested for association with two measures of academic performance.

Prerequisite grade point average (pGPA) only predicted first-semester grade point average (GPA) in the program, and a pGPA of <3.695 was predictive of academic difficulty. While chemistry and physics prerequisites correlated with first-year program GPA, no individual prerequisite course was significantly associated with academic difficulty. Academic performance was not significantly associated with the number of prerequisites taken one at a time, nor with a higher incidence of course repeats.

Health profession educational programs can use similar methodologies to explore and develop evidence-based admissions criteria that support the retention and success of matriculated students.