News

New Year, New Data

A new year has brought new cohorts of didactic students to programs across the country. Although the delivery of didactic education may look dramatically different this year, our new By the Numbers: Curriculum Report 5, which presents data collected prior to the pandemic, still contains important information regarding the didactic phase of PA education.

This report provides an overview of which subject areas programs are spending the most time on, how they are assessing student mastery, and more. For instance, in response to changing priorities since the last time this survey was administered in 2016, we collected data about new, timely subject areas such as substance use disorder and provider health and well-being. Furthermore, this report sheds some light on a topic of growing discussion in PA education: PA-related doctoral degrees. Our data show that, as of 2019, 21.2% of responding programs offered or had discussed offering a PA-related doctoral degree.

This report not only provides insights into the ways in which programs are preparing students to build foundational knowledge and skills that will be critical to their clinical year, but the data from this report are available to researchers for further analysis. Custom reports are also available to PA faculty members who would like a more focused research report on specific items from this year. Read more about accessing further insights from this survey and report using our Data on Demand services.

For questions, comments, and suggestions, please contact the Research Team at research@PAEAonline.org or 703-667-4328.