The influence of general characteristics of physical therapy students in regards to major satisfaction and academic achivement

Objective: To examine the relations between satisfaction in major, academic achievement and five personality factors of physical therapy students. Design: Questionnaire study. Methods: In order for a complete enumeration when selecting study subjects, we selected five representative schools through raffles. For about three weeks from May 21st to June 16th 2012, we distributed self-administered questionnaires comprised of questions related to five personality factor characteristics, satisfaction in major and academic achievement. Total of 510 questionnaires were distributed and 442 questionnaires were returned. Except the castle is not answered or unanswered call 73 questionnaire collected data from the 369 call. And 369 questionnaires were used for analysis. The frequency analysis was conducted to examine general characteristics of subjects. Results: In the analysis of differences in personality factors for each individual variable in accordance with sex, women had higher degree of neuroticism than men (p<0.05). Also men showed higher openness than women (p<0.05). In the analysis of differences in personality factors for each individual variable in accordance with age, the lower the age was, the higher the degree of neuroticism was (p<0.05). For satisfaction in major, "Satisfaction in school life" and "Motive for selecting the major"were significant factors (p<0.05). academic achievement, "School type" and "Motive for selecting the major" were significant factors (p<0.05). Conclusions: In regards to the satisfaction in major and academic achievement, "Motive for selecting the major" was the major significant factor. Students who had high interest in their majors expressed higher satisfaction, which the in turn correlated with higher academic achievement.