Burzette Rebecca G, Danielson Jared A, Wu Tsui-Feng, Fales-Williams Amanda J, Kuehl Kathryn H
J Vet Med Educ. 2017 Summer;44(2):323-330. doi: 10.3138/jvme.0716-120R. Epub 2017 Mar 23.
The relations between potential indicators of undergraduate rigor and subsequent achievement in professional school are not clear; some studies have shown that greater undergraduate selectivity is associated with greater achievement in medical science programs, while others have not. We sought to determine the extent to which indicators of undergraduate rigor were associated with achievement in veterinary school. Participants were graduates from three cohorts. The predictors were undergraduate GPA (UGPA), plus five rigor scores-degree or number of undergraduate credits, number of honors courses, number of withdrawals from or repeats of prerequisite science courses, number of part-time semesters, and ratio of community college credits to total college credits. The outcomes were the veterinary medicine cumulative GPA (CVM GPA), Qualifying Exam scores, and North American Veterinary Licensing Exam scores. Using correlations corrected for range restriction, we regressed each outcome on the five rigor scores and UGPA for each of the three graduating cohorts. In most cases, indicators of undergraduate rigor did not predict subsequent achievement in veterinary school; however, in two comparisons, number of honors courses taken as an undergraduate predicted subsequent achievement. UGPA, as expected, predicted CVM GPA. Admissions committees may want to reevaluate whether they include undergraduate rigor when considering admission to their programs, with the caveat that our findings are specific to our institution and are not generalizable.
本科学习难度的潜在指标与后续在专业学院的学业成就之间的关系尚不明晰；一些研究表明，本科院校的选拔性越强，在医学专业项目中的成就越高，但其他研究则未得出此结论。我们试图确定本科学习难度指标与兽医学院学业成就之间的关联程度。研究参与者为来自三个队列的毕业生。预测指标包括本科平均绩点（UGPA），以及五个反映学习难度的分数——学位或本科课程学分数量、荣誉课程数量、先修科学课程的退课或重修次数、兼职学期数，以及社区学院学分与总大学学分的比例。结果指标为兽医学累积平均绩点（CVM GPA）、资格考试成绩和北美兽医执照考试成绩。我们使用针对范围限制进行校正的相关性分析，将三个毕业队列中每个队列的五个反映学习难度的分数和UGPA作为自变量，对每个结果指标进行回归分析。在大多数情况下，本科学习难度指标并不能预测后续在兽医学院的学业成就；然而，在两项比较中，本科阶段所修荣誉课程的数量能够预测后续学业成就。正如预期的那样，UGPA能够预测CVM GPA。招生委员会在考虑录取学生时，可能需要重新评估是否将本科学习难度纳入考量因素，但需注意的是，我们的研究结果仅适用于我们所在的院校，并不具有普遍适用性。
