In our past five blogs we have introduced various facets of incorporating a Student Success Coaching Model into your PA Program. In today’s blog, we provide a summary of all the components and working parts that make this model so effective for both avoiding PA education struggles and coping with remediation needs for PA students experiencing academic difficulties.

Programs that wish to begin practicing the Student Success Coaching Model should:

1. Facilitate a prematriculation program. This includes identification of students requiring completion of this program prior to the first day of classes. In addition, identifying which students should complete such a program would be within the realm of the Academic Succes Coach in collaboration with the admissions process.
   
2. Facilitate and oversee the test self-analysis process. All students who achieve less than 75% on an exam will be required to self - analyze his or her test. After analyzing the incorrect responses students will meet...

In our blogs thus far, we have focused on the value of the Student Success Coaching Model during the didactic year of a PA Program. The model doesn’t simply fade away after a student moves on to the clinical year, however. The clinical year’s challenges are different and therefore present an entirely new scope of student remediation needs.

In the transition to the clinical phase, the Student Success Coaching Model’s focus turns to skill sessions on formative independent study skills and test-taking techniques. This prepares students for summative testing and nationally standardized examinations to come: the EORE, PACKRAT and eventually, the PANCE.

Students have a limited amount of time during their clinical year but a formidable number of tests for which they must be prepared. It is essential that they understand how to manage the amount of material without burning out or being overwhelmed by stress.

Probation Mediation is an ongoing requirement. Students on...

In previous blogs, we have covered two forms of early intervention in PA education – pre-matriculation classes/modules and the Study Skills Development Program. These two interventions will go a long way toward curbing student difficulties by simply introducing the graduate-level skills students need to manage their studies in a rigorous PA program. While highly effective in their own right, these “ounce of prevention” methods are actually a portion of a broader concept: the Student Success Coaching Model.

All PA Programs have an advising structure providing support for students. Each individual program must reflect on whether the remediation process itself is working. Have you applied parametric analysis to student outcomes after they experienced remediation on multiple occasions? If students statistically are not performing as well as their peers, you must consider whether the process is effective.

Once the cohort begins and the didactic year is in session, even...

We begin our series of blogs on the roles of Student Success Coaching Model with the faculty of your PA program, because the process simply does not work without their investment and cooperation. The implementation of a Student Success program without the faculty’s “buy-in” is a program destined to fail. The faculty is responsible for assessing student performance, providing feedback, and engaging in overall academic advisement. We enable faculty with techniques for in-class interactions that vastly improve how students process, retain, and use the information the instructor teaches – to the benefit of all students, not just those who require remediation.

Success Coaching does not replace required course instructor and advisor meetings with students; it cannot work without those touchstone interactions. In fact, success coaching enhances the faculty/student relationship by providing a framework for making plans and following through. We expect faculty to...

In our previous blog, we discussed the value of using data to determine which PA students are “at-risk” for struggling in their education, along with the idea of pre-matriculation education modules to help even the playing field for those students. It is immediately apparent, however, that while this is a beneficial step for students who have been flagged as being “at risk,” it might also miss a number of students who will quite simply have difficulties because PA education is difficult. 

The truth is that experiencing growing pains upon entering PA education is not uncommon, even for students with exceedingly high GPAs. Students experience difficulty when adjusting to the vast amount of information required to learn in PA education, to the rigors of the didactic year, which may be quite different than their previous education, or merely to the stress of graduate-level studies.

Setting aside the various other reasons students may struggle, there is a...

In our last blog, we introduced the concept of the Student Skills Development Program. In effect, this is your PA program’s chance to jump in ahead of academic difficulties that some of your students may encounter during their didactic year. Once incorporated, such a program will increase the probability of your students thriving academically and successfully graduating.

A Student Skills Development Program begins with the admissions process. Perhaps your PA program wants to admit students who don’t quite “fit the mold.” They may have a lower GPA, a history of academic difficulty, or a spotty academic record. Perhaps your program wants to admit a student who meets the program’s mission, is racially diverse, or comes from a lower social-economic geographic area. If these students appear to be at risk before ever admitting them, what can your program do?

Increasing inclusion and diversity to encompass students from all backgrounds requires a PA program to...

One of our major focuses at Massey & Martin, LLC is the Student Success & Remediation, in which we guide PA Program administrators in assessing incoming students, offering those at risk of academic difficulty a chance to engage in prematriculation and, if necessary, organized remediation programs their didactic year of PA education. 

We see the current approach to student remediation in most PA programs following a recurring, and largely unhelpful, pattern:

1. PA students are admitted to PA program
2. Some of those students begin struggling academically
3. Students are provided opportunity for remediation (i.e., retake a test)
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3, hoping for student success

Yet often this method fails because core problems are not addressed; a student with no time-management skills will not develop them merely because a re-test is offered. In such a case, one is simply hoping that a few extra days for this beleaguered student to squeeze in some additional study time might...