scholarly journals Correlation between physician assistant students’ performance score of history taking and physical exam documentation and scores of Graduate Record Examination, clinical year grade point average, and score of Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam in the United States

Author(s):  
Sara Lolar ◽  
Jamie McQueen ◽  
Sara Maher

Purpose: Learning to perform and document patient history taking and physical exam (H&P) entails a major component of the first year academic education of physician assistant (PA) students at Wayne State University, USA. The H&P is summative of multiple aspects of PA education, and students must master communication with patients and other health care providers. The objectives of this study were first, to determine if there was a correlation between scores on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) component testing and scores on graded H&Ps. The second objective was to identify a correlation between proficiency with H&P documentation and academic and clinical year grade point average (GPA) and Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE) score.Methods: Subjects included 147 PA students from Wayne State University from 2014–2016. PA students visited local hospitals or outpatient clinics during the academic year to perform and document patient H&Ps. Correlation between the H&P mean scores and GRE component scores, GPAs, and PANCE scores were analyzed.Results: The subjects were 26.5 years-old (+6.5) and 111 females (75.5%). There was no correlation between the GRE component score and the H&P mean score. The H&P score was positively correlated with GPA 1 (r=0.512, P<0.001), with GPA 2 (r=0.425, P<0.001) and with PANCE score (r=0.448, P<0.001).Conclusion: PA student skill with H&P documentation was positively related to academic performance score during PA school and achievement score on the PANCE at Wayne State University, USA.

Author(s):  
Gretchen Roman ◽  
Matthew Paul Buman

Purpose: The field of physical therapy education is seeking an evidence-based approach for admitting qualified applicants, as previous research has assessed various outcomes, impeding practical application. This study was conducted to identify preadmission criteria predictive of graduation success. Methods: Data from the 2013–2016 graduating cohorts (n=149) were collected. Predictors included verbal Graduate Record Examination rank percentile (VGRE%), quantitative GRE rank percentile, and analytical GRE rank percentile, the admissions interview, precumulative science grade point average (SGPA), precumulative grade point average (UGPA), and a reflective essay. The National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) and grade point average at the time of graduation (GGPA) were used as measures of graduation success. Two separate mixed-effects models determined the associations of preadmission predictors with NPTE performance and GGPA. Results: The NPTE model fit comparison showed significant results (degrees of freedom [df]=10, P=0.001), decreasing within-cohort variance by 59.5%. NPTE performance were associated with GGPA (β=125.21, P=0.001), and VGRE%, the interview, the essay, and GGPA (P≤0.001) impacted the model fit. The GGPA model fit comparison did not show significant results (df=8, P=0.56), decreasing within-cohort variance by 16.4%. The GGPA was associated with the interview (β=0.02, P=0.04) and UGPA (β=0.25, P=0.04), and VGRE%, the interview, UGPA, and the essay (P≤0.02) impacted model fit. Conclusion: In our findings, GGPA predicted NPTE performance, and the interview and UGPA predicted GGPA. Unlike past evidence, SGPA showed no predictive power. The essay and VGRE% warrant attention because of their influence on model fit. We recommend that admissions ranking matrices place a greater weight on the interview, UGPA, VGRE%, and essay.


2021 ◽  
pp. 297-298

This chapter assesses Laura Limonic's Kugel and Frijoles: Latino Jews in the United States (2019). This sociological study focuses on Latinx Jews who have migrated to the United States since 1965, largely from Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. Limonic establishes that the earlier migration of Cuban Jews to Miami in the early 1960s created a precedent for other Latin American Jews to search for a new home and a new sense of identity as “Latino Jews” in the United States. Fleeing the turn to Communism after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, thousands of Cuban Jews arrived in Miami hoping to be welcomed into the American Jewish communal and religious institutions of the day. Instead, they discovered that their Cubanness made their Jewishness suspect at a time when multiculturalism was not yet in vogue. As a result, they had to build their own religious and social spaces, constructing an Ashkenazi synagogue, the Cuban Hebrew Congregation of Miami, and a Sephardic synagogue, Temple Moses.


Author(s):  
Phillip Eugene Jones ◽  
Susan Simpkins ◽  
Jennie Alicea Hocking

We compared and contrasted physician assistant and physical therapy profession admissions processes based on the similar number of accredited programs in the United States and the co-existence of many programs in the same school of health professions, because both professions conduct similar centralized application procedures administered by the same organization. Many studies are critical of the fallibility and inadequate scientific rigor of the high-stakes nature of health professions admissions decisions, yet typical admission processes remain very similar. Cognitive variables, most notably undergraduate grade point averages, have been shown to be the best predictors of academic achievement in the health professions. The variability of non-cognitive attributes assessed and the methods used to measure them have come under increasing scrutiny in the literature. The variance in health professions students’ performance in the classroom and on certifying examinations remains unexplained, and cognitive considerations vary considerably between and among programs that describe them. One uncertainty resulting from this review is whether or not desired candidate attributes highly sought after by individual programs are more student-centered or graduate-centered. Based on the findings from the literature, we suggest that student success in the classroom versus the clinic is based on a different set of variables. Given the range of positions and general lack of reliability and validity in studies of non-cognitive admissions attributes, we think that health professions admissions processes remain imperfect works in progress.


2020 ◽  
pp. 249-251

This anthology stems from a 2014 conference at the University of Maryland, which focused on how American Jews provided material aid to Holocaust refugees during and after the Holocaust, and also how they began to cope with the catastrophe. This coping involved both an imagining and a re-imagining of “the old country,” a reevaluation of the places American Jews had left behind in more or less normal circumstances before the First World War but in increasingly desperate circumstances after 1918 and, again, after 1939. American Jews who had come to the United States before the 1920s maintained ties with their former communities in Central and Eastern Europe, ties that were fostered by efforts to remain in touch with family and friends and, more generally, with the world’s most populous Jewish communities. Those efforts were aided by the ...


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (04) ◽  
pp. 596-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Zachary Taylor

AbstractHow relatively good or bad were the economic performances of our past presidents? The answers to this question remain unclear. Most evaluations of presidential performance cloud the issue with partisan bias and subjective judgments or mix economics together with other policy areas. To address these shortcomings, this article uses new data from the Measuring Worth Project to calculate the relative economic rankings of the United States presidents who served from 1789 until 2009. It analyzes up to 220 years of data on economic growth, unemployment, inflation, government debt, balance of payments, income inequality, currency strength, interest rates, and stock market returns to estimate an economic grade point average for each president. Then, these estimates are used to test for correlations with other variables to generate hypotheses regarding the conditions for superior and inferior economic performance.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank L. Samson

AbstractAs the White populace in the United States moves toward numerical minority status by 2042, how might Whites respond to impending threat of losing their dominant group position? In particular, how will Whites react at selective, elite universities, where Asians are increasingly prominent and other non-Whites are maintaining or capturing a larger share of enrollments? Drawing on group position theory, I test White commitment to meritocracy as a public policy, using a survey-based experiment (599 California adult residents) to examine the importance grade point average should have in public university admissions. Whites decrease the importance that grade point average should have when Asian group threat is primed. However, White Californians increase the importance that grade point average should have when thinking about group threat from either Blacks or Blacks and Asians simultaneously. Ethnoracial outgroup threat shifts White support for meritocracy in different directions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (Suppl. 1) ◽  
pp. 6911505120p1
Author(s):  
Alaena Haber ◽  
Allie Fen ◽  
Katherine Perrine ◽  
Jessica Jin ◽  
Molly Bathje ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Scott Massey ◽  
Johnna Yealy ◽  
Rajat Chadha ◽  
David Beck

Purpose: Physician Assistant (PA) programs often set minimum GPA and graduate record examination (GRE) requirements for admission, citing that candidates with higher admission scores will perform better in the PA program. However, to date, there are limited published studies with inconsistent results that have investigated the validity of using these preadmission characteristics to predict performance in PA programs or on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE). The development of a physician assistant college admission test (PA-CAT) that has predictive validity to determine PANCE success would give PA admissions committees an additional resource to make decisions. This study was conducted to determine the strength of the relationship between PA-CAT and undergraduate cumulative and science GPA. Methods: The PA-CAT is comprised of 180 questions covering 12 subject areas based on research identifying the relative importance of that subject to success in the PA curriculum. The exam was administered through a secured computer-based testing to 479 newly admitted PA students across the United States. Regression analysis was conducted with Rasch scale scores as the dependent variable and two independent variables (undergraduate GPA and undergraduate science GPA). Results: The PA-CAT Rasch scale scores are positively correlated with undergraduate GPA (r=0.16) and undergraduate science GPA (r=0.22). Although these correlation coefficients are statistically significant (pConclusion:Early results from this research study demonstrates there is a statistically significant relationship between the PA-CAT and undergraduate science GPA in newly admitted PA students. Limitations of the study include the fact that students voluntarily took this exam without consequence. Further study is needed to determine if the exam can be generalized to the entire PA applicant pool thereby providing a valid instrument for admissions decisions.


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