Date of Award

January 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Radomir Mitic

Abstract

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are licensed professionals trained to work with various age ranges who have communication, feeding, and/or swallowing difficulties. The entry level education for an SLP to actively practice is a master’s degree. To fill the many vacant and needed SLP jobs across the country, it is necessary for SLP master’s programs to admit highly qualified students into their programs, resulting in many competent SLPs entering the workforce to fill the current job openings. Minot State University’s SLP master’s program has experienced a significant decline in graduate applications over the past decade. There is limited research specific to the SLP field on what influences students to apply to certain graduate programs. The purpose of this study was to identify key influential factors throughout the graduate school application process, with the hopes of revising marketing and recruitment strategies to attract more students to the applicant pool. This quantitative study surveyed juniors, seniors, and post-baccalaureate students applying to SLP master’s programs in the United States on what they found important and not important during the application process. A sample of 223 responses was analyzed to determine the most important and least important factors in the application process and to identify differences between influential factors and various participant sociodemographics. Results indicated cost of tuition, option for a face-to-face program, cost of living expenses, opportunities for financial aid and/or scholarships, reputation of program, faculty, and institution, opportunities for specific clinical experiences, ability to talk to program faculty and/or students through the application process, and responsiveness of program to inquiries and questions were rated as either very important or important. Option for part-time enrollment and an online program, size of university and program, and opportunities for research were ranked as less important. Meaningful differences occurred between several factors and age, academic status, and race and ethnicity. The final product of this study included a white paper that highlights practical and actionable recommendations for programs to enhance their marketing and recruitment practices, as well as recommendations on admissions practices and a potential solution for admitting students with varied application strengths.

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