Prerequisite Delivery Method and Academic Outcomes in a Physician Assistant Education Program

Abstract

Purpose The Interservice Physician Assistant Program (IPAP) educates up to 169 matriculants per year. Each service branch sets the admission criteria, including all prerequisites, for their applicants. We hypothesized that prerequisites obtained online/virtual are less rigorous than coursework completed in-person. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether online/virtual prerequisite courses were associated with academic deceleration or attrition at any point. Methods Student self-reported data were retrospectively analyzed to evaluate program scores of students who took prerequisites online/virtual or in-person. Results There were no statistically significant differences in foundational course performance between online/virtual and in-person coursework. In addition, students who took anatomy online performed better than students who completed the coursework in-person (140.6 ± 15.6 vs. 145.6 ± 14.7, P = .05). Conclusions This analysis indicates that using the prerequisite source to predict academic difficulty may not be possible in IPAP students. Faculty will need to continue to search for other predictors of academic difficulty.