The Effects of a Pass-Fail Curriculum on a Physician Assistant Program

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Physician Assistant Studies

Background:

• Physician Assistant (PA) program grading systems lack standardization, utilizing either traditional A-F scales or pass-fail methods.
• A shift from ordered grading to pass-fail was implemented at a southeastern PA program following changes in its affiliated School of Medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of transitioning from a traditional grading scale to a pass-fail system on student performance in standardized exams.

Main Methods:

• Compared Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) and PACKRAT 2 scores from two cohorts (2016-2017) under a 5-tiered system with two cohorts (2018-2019) under a pass-fail system.
• Utilized nonrandom sampling and two-tailed t-testing to analyze scores from a total of 236 students.

Main Results:

• Students in the traditional 5-tiered grading system achieved higher mean scores on both PANCE and PACKRAT 2 exams compared to the pass-fail cohorts.
• Statistical significance was observed between the grading systems for PANCE scores and most PACKRAT 2 scores, indicating a performance difference.

Conclusions:

• Curricular changes, including grading system shifts, can impact initial standardized exam scores.
• While PANCE scores initially decreased in the first year of the pass-fail system, overall program scores remained competitive, with an upward trend observed in the second year.
• Further research is recommended to explore the effects of pass-fail grading on student stress, knowledge retention, and competition.