| The study investigated how well academic achievement (i.e., Grade Point Average and Pharmacy College Admissions Test scores [PCAT]), student characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, SES, educational level, parental education, work experience, native/first language, and acceptance into pharmacy school), predict the academic motivation (intrinsic, extrinsic, or amotivated) of doctor of pharmacy degree applicants. This study further investigated the degree to which Self-Determination Theory, as measured by the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) (Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, & Briere, 1992), is relevant to the population of students in pursuit of a professional degree, specifically, in pharmacy. A convenience sample of volunteers was recruited from all U.S. applicants to pharmacy school, who utilized the PharmCAS service during the 2012--2013 admissions cycle (n=17,651). The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy oversaw the collection of responses on the AMS and a researcher-developed close-ended survey through SurveyMonkey(TM). Overall, professional pharmacy applicants were found to be extrinsically motivated. This study used multiple regression analysis (MRA) to identify predictors for the Self Determination Index (SDI), which indicated that the variables making a significant unique contribution to the prediction of the SDI included gender, accepted students, under-represented minorities, childhood SES, quantitative PCAT, non-science GPA, verbal PCAT, and comprehensive PCAT. The hierarchical MRA determined that the non-cognitive trait making a significant unique contribution to the prediction of the SDI was URM. However, the effect size in self-determination for all results was very small and therefore no strong conclusions can be drawn. The findings will be used to inform best practices in admissions. |
