Predictors of Physical Therapy Academic and NPTE Licensure Performance

Abstract

Purpose

Screening potential candidates for their ability to successfully negotiate the rigorous academic challenges of Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) programs in the United States is a critical part of the admissions process. Among the most commonly investigated criteria are pre-admission parameters such as undergraduate overall cumulative grade point averages (GPA), combined science-math GPAs, as well as verbal and quantitative graduate requirement entrance scores (vGRE and qGRE). To expand upon this line of inquiry, the current study explored the relationship between pre- and post- admission criteria and the performance scores on the national physical therapy licensure exam (NPTE). Since recent changes (2013) were instituted in the way questions were both formulated as well as graded, validity of using such pre-admission parameters needed to be re-examined.

Method

Associations between individual preadmission parameters and final NPTE scores were compared using the academic records of two separate cohorts of DPT students from Touro College School of Health Sciences assessed over a period of three years (2014-2016). The method of admissions screening and the academic programming for each campus are identical. Descriptive, normative data for the two campuses for pre- and post- admissions variables, and pooled, aggregated data were used for correlation analysis to compare their relationships with students’ performance on the NPTE licensure exams.

Results

Our findings support the use of vGRE and qGRE scores as particular predictors for success on NPTE exam scores. Early performance in post-admission GPAs corroborate the suggestion that early assessment of post-admission, graduate DPT academic performance can strongly predict a physical therapy student׳s later performance on the NPTE licensure exam.

Conclusions

These findings strongly support the use of early remediation protocols for already enrolled DPT students struggling within the academic program. Pre-admission screening using standardized test scores, such as the graduate requirement entrance exams (GREs) are also recommended.