Abstract
Background:
The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the COVID-19 pandemic and the instructional changes implemented in response to it have affected student enrollment, retention, or success on the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC) credentialing examinations at an associate degree respiratory care program in the state of Texas.
Methods:
A retrospective analysis of student enrollment and retention data and graduate success rates on the NBRC credentialing examinations were used in this study. The data was collected from an associate degree respiratory care program in Texas including all graduates (n = 69) for the 5-year study period. The three academic years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic served as a pre-pandemic baseline for comparison. The cohort of 2019-20 was labeled early-pandemic, the cohort of 2020-21 was labeled mid-pandemic, and the cohort of 2021-22 was labeled late-pandemic for data comparison purposes. Kruskal-Wallis with multiple pairwise comparisons was used for data analysis and significance values were adjusted by the Bonferroni correction for multiple tests (P < .05). The research protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Texas State University and Dallas College.
Results:
As shown in Table 1 below, the number of program applicants significantly decreased between the pre-pandemic and late-pandemic groups (P = .001), but overall student enrollment (P = .42) and retention (P = .95) were not significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. First-time pass rate on the Therapist Multiple-Choice (TMC) examination, low-cut score (P = .005), and high-cut score (P = .007) were significantly reduced in the mid-pandemic group when compared to previous cohorts (Table 2).
Conclusions:
The COVID-19 pandemic and the instructional changes implemented in response to it decreased students’ first-time pass rate on the TMC examination in the mid-pandemic group compared to the pre- and early-pandemic groups.
*Mean difference was significant at the 0.05 level when compared to the (2yrs) pre-pandemic and late-pandemic values. †Projected data as of 11/24/2021. *Mean difference was significant at the 0.05 level when compared to the three previous cohorts. †Mean difference was significant at the 0.05 level when compared to the (1yr) Pre-pandemic cohort. View all access options for this article.Table 1. Enrollment and retention data in all pre-, early-, mid-, and late-pandemic groups.
(3yrs) Pre-pandemic
(2yrs) Pre-pandemic
(1yr) Pre-pandemic
Early-pandemic
Mid-pandemic
Late-pandemic
p-value
Applicants
26
24
35*
28
28
20
.001
Disqualified
1
8
6
8
6
2
.08
Qualified
25
16
29
20
22
18
.08
Accepted
18
16
18
18
18
16
.42
Graduates
13
12
15
14
15
13†
.76
Retention (%)
72%
75%
83%
78%
83%
81%†
.95
Table 2. TMC success rates in all pre-, early-, mid-pandemic groups.
TMC (low-cut)
(3yrs) Pre-pandemic
(2yrs) Pre-pandemic
(1yr) Pre-pandemic
Early-pandemic
Mid-pandemic
p-value
Graduates tested
13
12
15
13
15
.23
Total passing (n, %)
13 (100%)
12 (100%)
15 (100%)
13 (100%)
13 (86.7%)
.13
Passing, first time (n, %)
12 (92.3%)
12 (100%)
15 (100%)
13 (100%)
10 (66.7%)*
.005
TMC (high-cut)
(3yrs) Pre-pandemic
(2yrs) Pre-pandemic
(1yr) Pre-pandemic
Early-pandemic
Mid-pandemic
p-value
Graduates tested
13
12
15
13
15
.23
Total passing (n, %)
12 (92.3%)
12 (100%)
15 (100%)
13 (100%)
12 (80%)
.10
Passing, first time (n, %)
11 (84.6%)
11 (91.7%)
15 (100%)
12 (92.3%)
8 (53.3%)†
.007
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