Identifying students who may struggle in a professional physical therapy (PT) program can
inform admission decisions and direct development of strategies to help students be successful in
the program. Many researchers have studied the relationship between various preadmission
variables and success in a PT program. To date, the preadmission variables studied have
accounted for 37% or less of the variance in predicting PT program success. The purpose of this
study was to determine if preadmission variables and the following variables had an impact on
PT student program success and clinical readiness: Health Science Reasoning Test – Numeracy
(HSRT-N) scores, California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) scores, Self-
Reflection and Insight Scale (SRIS) scores. This study also explored the relationship between the
SRIS and HSRT-N and CCTDI. Forty-two DPT students were included in this prospective
cohort study. The only statistically significant difference (p = .043) between PT students who
experienced academic success and PT students who experienced academic difficulty was in their
SRIS-Insight scores. Students who experienced academic success had higher mean SRIS-Insight
scores than those who experienced academic difficulty. The SRIS and its subscales did have 17
statistically significant low to moderate correlations (r = .30-.67, p < .05) with HSRT-N and
CCTDI scores and subscale scores. Results suggest that SRIS-Insight scores may be useful in
identifying students at-risk for academic difficulty and SRIS scores may serve as a useful
instrument in PT education.