Does Age at Entry have an Impact on Academic Performance in Occupational Therapy Education?

Abstract

This article presents a research study that investigated age as a predictor of higher academic outcome in a sample of 425 recent honours graduates from 8 out of 19 (42%) occupational therapy schools in England and Wales. The initial analysis of the data showed that age was related to academic performance, but this relationship was much weaker when the qualifications used to gain entry to occupational therapy education were added to the statistical analysis. The data were strongly influenced by the superior academic performance of the students who had a previous degree on entry to occupational therapy education. When these degree-level entrants were removed from the age analysis, the academic performance of the remaining mature students did not differ significantly from that of the younger students, thus removing the effect of age that was initially seen in the data. This result indicates that entry qualifications, in particular a previous degree, have a positive predictive effect on the academic performance of students in occupational therapy education. This finding has implications for those planning new occupational therapy programmes and for admissions tutors in existing programmes.