Identifying Motivations for Applying to Graduate School Among Admitted Student Admissions Essays

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that prompted individuals to choose audiology or speech-language pathology as their intended career. With a projected shortage of audiologists as compared to the projected demand, understanding the motivations for pursuing these fields could help graduate programs and professionals derive methods to increase recruitment among potential applicants. Common themes of motivation were identified within twenty-one application essays of admitted graduate students in audiology or speech-language pathology programs. Themes emerged following qualitative coding methods using a unique codebook designed to highlight both general and specific motivations. Four main themes of motivation were classified. The themes are personal experiences, reinforcement of previous experience through coursework/research, a desire to help others, and future goals dependent on a career in a communications sciences disorder field. These four themes were present in over 70% of the participant essays. Potential recruitment strategies geared toward both general and specific methods of recruitment emerge from the motivational themes with the principal one involving increased awareness of and exposure to audiology and speech-language pathology. The findings from this study will help inform and contribute to new education/outreach and recruitment strategies in the fields of audiology and speech-language pathology.