Structured Intervention of Early Term Preclinical Veterinary Students Experiencing Academic Peril Improves Academic Performance

Abstract

Veterinary medical students experiencing curricular challenges naturally look to their institution for resources to facilitate improvement in academic productivity. Academic remediation programs tend to be institution-specific, and their impact on student success is uncommonly interrogated using rigorous objective assessment. This study investigated the deployment of an academic development program (ADP) in the second semester of the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) Program. The research focused on the impact of the ADP on student attrition, mean semester course grade improvements, and performance on the Veterinary Educational Assessment (VEA) examination. Performance metrics were compared between the ADP group and a control group (CG) of students from one semester ahead who were determined to be demographically equivalent and in the same class (bottom) quartile as the ADP group but did not have any structured academic remediation. The findings indicate that students participating in the ADP had less attrition and gradual increases in end-of-semester grades, such that by the beginning of their 5th semester, ADP students’ grades were indistinguishable from upper quartiles in their class. This trend was not observed in the CG class with significant differences still present between the lower quartiles (i.e., CG) grades and the remainder of the class ( p = .0046). ADP enrollment had a positive effect on VEA scores with mean scale score increased by 4.83 points ( p = .017). This study provided the framework for a successful institutional academic remediation program that could be modeled at other institutions striving to bolster student support services.