Minority Recruitment and Retention Strategies in Physical Therapist Education Programs

Background and Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were direct relationships between: (1) the number of recruitment and retention strategies and the number of minority students who were accepted into, enrolled in, and graduated from a physical therapist education program and (2) the number of minority full-time faculty and the number of minority students who were accepted into, enrolled in, and graduated from a physical therapist education program. Subjects. The sample used for this research study consisted of 76 of 173 physical therapist programs in the United States accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) in 1999. Methods. The program director at each program surveyed completed a questionnaire. The responses served as the data utilized for this research study. Results. The results were analyzed using descriptive analysis and Pearson product moment correlations. More recruitment strategies was not significantly correlated (r=.210) with having more minority applicants. Number of minority recruitment strategies was not correlated with number of first-year minority students (r=.119). Retention strategies were correlated with a greater percentage of minority graduate students (r=.382, P<.05). Special retention efforts also were significantly correlated with number of graduating minority students (r=.350, P<.01). There was a correlation between minority faculty and minority applications (r=.426, P<.01), although there was no correlation between number of minority faculty and number of first-year students (r=.173) and graduating minorities (r=.219). Discussion and Conclusion. The results indicate that physical therapist education programs: (1) are deficient in keeping ethnicity and racial data of minority applicants; (2) are deficient in keeping data related to the reasons why minorities fail to graduate; (3) have more minority applicants and minority graduates when utilizing special efforts to recruit and retain minorities, respectively; (4) have more minority graduates when using more retention strategies; and (5) have more minority applicants when having more minority full-time faculty.