Becoming more holistic: A literature review of nonacademic factors in the admissions process of colleges and schools of pharmacy and other health professions

An exploration of the relationship between grit, reflection-in-learning, and academic performance in entry-level doctor of physical therapy students

INTRODUCTION

Recent literature in physical therapy education suggests learners' non-cognitive skills, such as grit and reflection, may be predictors of success. Little is known about the relationship of these constructs to each other or success during the first year of entry level physical therapist education.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between Reflection-In- Learning Scale (RLS), grit, and grade point average (GPA) of entry-level physical therapy students during the first year of didactic instruction.

METHODS

One hundred and fourteen entry-level doctor of physical therapy students enrolled in a private university completed the original 12-item Grit Scale (Grit 1) and the RLS (RLS 1) during the first term and again at the end of the third trimester (Grit 2 and RLS 2).

RESULTS

The relationship between Grit 1 and RLS 1 demonstrated a fair, positive, significant correlation (r = .380, p < .001). No relationship was found between Grit 1 and GPA (r = .066, p = .485), or Grit 2 and GPA (r = .064, p = .500), or between RLS 1 and GPA (r = .017, p = .857), or RLS 2 and GPA (r = .171, p = .069). Fifty-three percent of students demonstrated a decrease in grit and 56% decreased RLS scores at the end of the first year of the program.

CONCLUSION

The fair correlation between these variables indicates they may measure different constructs. Findings suggest that doctor of physical therapy programs should be cautious when using these non-cognitive factors in making admission decisions. Future research should explore changes in grit and RLS throughout the curricula and impact on student success.

Detecting Artificial Intelligence-Generated Personal Statements in Professional Physical Therapist Education Program Applications: A Lexical Analysis

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to compare the lexical sophistication of personal statements submitted by professional physical therapist education program applicants with those generated by OpenAI's Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer (ChatGPT).

METHODS

Personal statements from 152 applicants and 20 generated by ChatGPT were collected, all in response to a standardized prompt. These statements were coded numerically, then analyzed with recurrence quantification analyses (RQAs). RQA indices including recurrence, determinism, max line, mean line, and entropy were compared with t-tests. A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to examine discriminative validity of RQA indices to distinguish between ChatGPT and human-generated personal statements.

RESULTS

ChatGPT-generated personal statements exhibited higher recurrence, determinism, mean line, and entropy values than did human-generated personal statements. The strongest discriminator was a 13.04% determinism rate, which differentiated ChatGPT from human-generated writing samples with 70% sensitivity and 91.4% specificity (positive likelihood ratio = 8.14). Personal statements with determinism rates exceeding 13% were 8 times more likely to have been ChatGPT than human generated.

CONCLUSION

Although RQA can distinguish artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text from human-generated text, it is not absolute. Thus, AI introduces additional challenges to the authenticity and utility of personal statements. Admissions committees along with organizations providing guidelines in professional physical therapist education program admissions should reevaluate the role of personal statements in applications.

IMPACT

As AI-driven chatbots like ChatGPT complicate the evaluation of personal statements, RQA emerges as a potential tool for admissions committees to detect AI-generated statements.

Assessing Multiple-Mini Interview Performance Across Pharmacy Admissions Pathways

OBJECTIVE

To assess whether students who are admitted to a Doctor of Pharmacy program through different admissions pathways (early assurance vs other pathways) have significantly different affective domain competencies, as measured by multiple-mini interview (MMI) evaluations.

METHODS

A secondary analysis of existing data was conducted at a single pharmacy school in the upper Midwestern U.S. over 3 admissions cycles. The program offers a 6-year, early assurance admission pathway as well as more traditional admissions pathways which can be completed in 7-8 years. Differences in MMI scores, overall and by individual question, were assessed using the Kruskal-Wallis test.

RESULTS

No differences in total MMI scores exist between individuals applying through the program's early assurance pathway and those applying through other pathways. In the first admissions cycle, early assurance applicants performed significantly lower on the responsibility MMI item (mean = 7.01 vs 8.50) and significantly higher on the cross-cutting MMI item (mean = 6.95 vs 5.45). In the second admissions cycle, early assurance applicants scored significantly higher on the self-awareness MMI item than other applicants (mean = 8.22 vs 7.14). No statistically significant differences were found between early assurance and non-early assurance applicants during the final admissions cycle.

CONCLUSION

Individuals applying through an early assurance pathway produce MMI scores that are similar to individuals applying through other admissions pathways.

The Visibility of Disabilities within Pharmacy Program Recruitment Material

Background:

Targeted recruitment of students with disabilities is a novel area in pharmacy education and may help to attract qualified students in light of decreasing applicant numbers. The aim of this study was to explore the visibility of disabilities within online recruitment material for pharmacy programs and to determine the location of targeted information available to prospective students with disabilities.

Methods:

The top 50 ranked programs offering a professional pharmacy degree under the Pharmacy and Pharmacology QS subject rankings were identified and included if recruitment material was published in English. Online recruitment material was reviewed for presence of persons with disabilities in photos, presence or description of persons with disabilities in videos, information specific to disabilities on the program website (e.g. technical standards), and information specific to disabilities on the university website (if not located on the program website).

Results:

A total of 41 international program websites met the inclusion criteria. No programs included pictures or videos featuring persons with disabilities. A total of 18 (44%) of programs had disability information on the program website and an additional 18 (44%) of programs included information on the university website. There were 5 (12%) of programs that did not include any information about disabilities on the program or university website.

Conclusion:

Recruitment material for pharmacy degree programs should be current, inclusive, and reflective of student populations eligible to be admitted. This study found a distinct underrepresentation of students with disabilities and information pertaining to disabilities within recruitment material for a sample of international pharmacy programs.