Marketability of physical therapists with a postprofessional degree earned through distance education

Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Spring 2002 by Ball, Andrew M, Rosenberg, Angela, Gandy, Jody

For each field of study, respondents were asked to compare a faculty candidate with a distance-earned degree with a candidate with a traditional (on-site) degree and subsequently to classify their views of the distance-education candidate on a 7-point Likert scale (examples provided in Appendix 2). Responses that were confusing or incongruent with the follow-up questions were omitted, and the summary of the remaining data results obtained from 82 respondents is presented in Table 2. No respondents answered "Far more qualified than" or "A bit more qualified than." For this reason, Table 2 omits these fields in order to present the information in a more concise manner.

As shown in Table 2, 54% of respondents perceived a distance-educated candidate with a basic science background "just as qualified as" or "a bit less qualified than" a traditionally educated candidate. More respondents stated that a distance-educated faculty candidate with a background in basic science would not be considered for employment, 16% compared with 6% to 7% in all other fields of study. In the field of clinical science, 68% of respondents considered a candidate with a distance-earned clinical science degree "a bit less qualified than," "just as qualified as," or "a bit more qualified than" an individual with the same degree earned via a traditional (on-site) program. Approximately 50% of program directors found distance-educated candidates in the fields of business administration, education, and public health/public policy "just as qualified as" their traditionally educated counterparts, and findings were similarly distributed among these 3 fields of study.

The information was then analyzed to determine whether significant differences existed in perceived utility between the group of physical therapist programs located in research institutions and those located in nonresearch institutions. Results differentiating between the data obtained from physical therapist programs located in research- versus nonresearch-based institutions are presented in the Tables 3 and 4.

In addition, respondents working in both research and nonresearch institutions were asked, for each field of study, to compare a faculty candidate with a distance-earned degree with a candidate with a degree earned via a traditional (on-site) program and subsequently to classify their views of the distance-education candidate on a 7-point Likert scale (examples provided in Appendix 2).

The results obtained via questionnaire are summarized in Tables 5 and 6. No respondents answered "Far more qualified than" or "A bit more qualified than." For this reason, Tables 5 and 6 omit these fields in order to present the information more concisely. More than 57% of program directors at nonresearch institutions believed that an individual with an advanced distance-earned degree in business administration, public health/policy, or education was "just as qualified as" a faculty candidate educated through traditional means, compared with approximately 25% of program directors at research institutions. For every field of study, a greater percentage of respondents directing programs at research institutions stated that they would not consider a candidate with an advanced degree earned through distance education than did respondents directing programs at nonresearch institutions. Fourteen percent of program directors of physical therapist programs at nonresearch institutions perceived a distance-educated candidate with an advanced degree in clinical science as not worthy of consideration versus 8% in basic science and 2% or less in all other fields. Directors of physical therapist programs at research institutions perceived distance-educated candidates with an advanced degree in basic science as not qualified for consideration (38% versus 21% in all other fields). This perception was not as strong among directors of physical therapist programs at nonresearch institutions (approximately 8%), although only 35% of the nonresearch program directors felt a distance-earned basic science degree to be comparable to a traditional (on-side) basic science degree.