Award Date

5-15-2026

Degree Type

Doctoral Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)

Department

Physical Therapy

First Committee Member

Jessica Allen

Second Committee Member

Daniel Young

Third Committee Member

Kai-Yu Ho

Number of Pages

41

Abstract

Purpose/Hypothesis: Despite a growing push for diversity in healthcare, the impact of interviewer-applicant demographic alignment on scoring remains under-researched within the specific context of physical therapy admissions, particularly across different interview platforms. A sex or race concordance bias has the potential to compromise a program’s reliability of applicant evaluations and conflicts with the ethical standards of equity and nondiscrimination that guide healthcare education and practice. In this study we aimed to determine the relationship between sex and race concordance of interviewers and applicants for both in-person and asynchronous virtual interview scores at the University of Las Vegas Physical Therapy (UNLV PT) department. We hypothesized no difference in scores regardless of sex or race concordance.

Study background: This study evaluates the impact of interview modality, specifically in-person versus asynchronous virtual formats, on demographic scoring trends and the necessity of race and sex concordance in the physical therapy admissions process.

Number of subjects: A total of 972 applicants were included. Data was collected from UNLV PT admissions cycles between 2018 and 2022.

Materials and methods: We analyzed the mean scores from both the in-person and asynchronous virtual interviews to identify demographic trends. The independent variables were interviewer race, interviewer gender, applicant race and lastly applicant gender. A univariate general linear regression for both interview types was used to assess the relationship of racial and gender concordances between applicant and interviewers. Lastly a one-way ANOVA was used to compare interview scores across all groups based on full match (race and gender), partial match (race or gender), or no match. The statistical significance was set at p< 0.5.

Results: The average asynchronous virtual interview score was 3.27/5, and the average in-person interview score was 32.6/40. For in-person interviews, no significant relationship was found between interview scores and interviewer-applicant race concordance (p=.252) or gender concordance (p=.445). For asynchronous virtual interviews, no significant relationship was found with gender or race concordance; however, an overall higher score was observed for Black applicants during asynchronous virtual interviews, regardless of interviewer race (p=0.042).

Conclusions: While UNLV PT’s in-person interviews appear equitable regardless of gender or race, the ethnicity-based associations found in asynchronous virtual scores necessitate a critical design review. Future research must evaluate how virtual interviews impact cohort diversity to ensure they do not create new barriers to inclusion.

Clinical Relevance: Developing an equitable admissions process is essential for diversifying the physical therapy workforce, which is a key factor in reducing health disparities and improving patient outcomes in underrepresented communities. The lack of discriminatory patterns in non-concordant pairings suggests that programs can focus on rubric standardization rather than racial/gender matching of interviewers to achieve fair outcomes.

Keywords

Physical Therapy Education; Admissions Processes; Applicant Assessment; Demographic Concordance; Asynchronous Interviewing; Diversity; Equity; and Inclusion

Disciplines

Medical Education | Physical Therapy

File Format

PDF

File Size

503 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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