J Dent Educ. 71(3): 348-353 2007
© 2007 American Dental Education Association
Critical Issues in Dental Education |
Applicant-Interviewer Gender Concordance and the Decision to Enroll in Dental School
Daniel J. Bender, Ed.D.;
Dorothy T. Burk, Ph.D.;
Kathy P. Candito
Key words: female gender, gender concordance, admissions, interview, enrollment, dental education
Submitted for publication 08/31/06;
accepted 11/21/06
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Abstract
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To increase the yield of females in the entering class, the executive admissions committee at a private West Coast dental school instituted gender-concordant applicant-interviewer dyads. Supported by Tajfel’s social identity theory, members of the committee assumed that female applicants interviewed by female faculty interviewers were more likely to enroll than females interviewed by male interviewers. The purpose of this study was to test that assumption. Data were collected on all accepted applicants (n=1,192) and all faculty interviewers (n=43) for the 2001–05 entering classes and analyzed with chi square. Results revealed no relationship between applicant-interviewer gender concordance and the decision to enroll at the school. Although these findings suggest that applicant-interviewer gender concordance does not play a significant role in the enrollment decision, additional research is recommended on which factors are important to women in deciding to enroll at a particular dental school.
Although the first women to graduate from U.S. dental schools did so in the 1860s,1 female enrollment in dental school did not rise appreciably until roughly a century later. Perhaps due to the women’s movement or to changing social and economic factors of the time, the number of females entering dental school increased considerably in the 1970s and grew steadily through the 1980s and 1990s.2 Between 2000 and 2005, females made up nearly 45 percent of the national applicant pool, and in 2005 women were 44.8 percent of first-time enrollees at U.S. dental schools.3 In fact, eighteen schools reported a first-year class comprised of at least 50 percent females in that year.4
In contrast, entering classes at one private West Coast dental school during the five-year period 2001 to 2005 had a lower percentage of female applicants and first-time enrollees than the national average (Figures 1
and 2).3–5 Furthermore, in the same period, the school’s yield (the percentage of accepted applicants who enrolled) was consistently lower for females than for males (Figure 3). Concerned about the continuing low yield of women compared to men, the executive admissions committee instituted gender-concordant applicant-interviewer dyads. This decision was based on the assumption that female applicants are more likely to enroll if interviewed by a female faculty member.
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Figure 1. Percent of female applicants, 2001–05 entering classes
Note: Direct applicants not included in 2005 national figures. Total number of applicants is indicated in parentheses.
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Figure 2. Percent of female first-year enrollees, 2001–05 entering classes
Note: Total number of enrollees is indicated in parentheses.
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Henri Tajfel’s social identity theory offers some support for this assumption.6 Tajfel proposed that group identity is an important part of self-concept. He believed that individuals define themselves by group membership and that membership in a group is sufficient to lead to favoring behavior toward members of the same group and discriminatory behavior toward members of a different group(s). At the time gender concordant pairings were begun, the executive admissions committee was also discussing pairing underrepresented minority applicants with racially concordant interviewers to boost the number of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in the entering class, a position that has some support in the health care literature.7–9 The committee may have unwittingly extended the concordance concept to gender given its obvious face validity. The primary purpose of this investigation was to test the assumption that female applicants interviewed by female faculty members were more likely to enroll in a school of dentistry.
Research has shown that various factors play a role in an applicant’s decision to enroll at a particular dental school. Whitehead et al. surveyed groups of applicants to the University of Pittsburgh to determine which factors influenced the applicant’s decision to matriculate.10 Responses indicated the most important reasons were location, curriculum, tuition, and reputation. This was consistent with the unpublished results of a 2000 survey at the School of Dental Medicine at Tufts University that found the deciding factors for applicants enrolling at their first choice dental school were academic reputation and cost of attending.10 Lopez et al., in a study of underrepresented minority applicants, concluded that dental school reputation was the key factor in the decision to enroll among URMs, with over half of the respondents indicating they chose a particular school even though the financial aid package was less than that offered at other schools.11 Since none of these studies examined responses by gender, it is unclear whether these factors—or others—are equally important to male and female applicants.
Applicant gender and the decision to enroll have been examined in other health professions education contexts. In a study of medical students’ selection of an internal medicine residency program, Aagaard et al. found that the most important factors for all applicants were house staff morale, academic reputation, and a positive interview experience.12 The authors also reported that female applicants rated faculty and staff gender diversity, proximity of the program to a spouse or to a spouse’s job, and an emphasis on primary care more highly than male applicants. The last finding was contradicted by the results of a study by Basco et al. that found primary care emphasis was not associated with a higher enrollment of females in medical school.13 In a study of applicants to an obstetrics and gynecology residency program, female respondents were more likely than males to consider how well current residents seemed to work together and the amount of didactic teaching in the decision to enroll, and male respondents were more likely to consider the quality of the hospital facility, salary, and supplemental income opportunities.14 Kippenbrock investigated variables related to recruitment of males into nursing programs and concluded that higher male application and enrollment rates were associated with lower educational cost, more male faculty, more doctorally prepared faculty, and larger gift and endowment funds.15
As reported by Aagaard et al., a positive interview may influence an applicant’s decision to enroll in medical school.12 Since faculty interviews are common in the dental school application process16 and because dental applicants report the interview to be important and memorable,10,17 a deeper understanding of the role of the interview in the enrollment decision seems justified. Whereas one study in medical education reported that applicants believed they could give more honest responses to interviewers of the same gender,18 no study found in the literature review for this investigation specifically examined the relationship between applicant-interviewer gender concordance and the decision to enroll in an educational program. Social identity theory suggests there is some validity to gender-concordant applicant/interviewer pairs, but studies in the employment field found that gender concordance between job applicant and recruiter is not an important factor in the decision to accept a job.19,20 The primary purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness of gender-concordant applicant-interviewer pairings in increasing the proportion of women at one dental school. We also sought to determine whether the findings from the employment research generalize to an educational setting.
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Method
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The faculty interview at the study site is a moderately structured, private conversation between an applicant and an interviewer lasting up to one hour. Each applicant is interviewed by a faculty member who is a member of the admissions committee. The interview normally takes place in a faculty office or small seminar room. The purpose of the interview is to assess noncognitive characteristics that may not otherwise be apparent in the application. Following guidelines provided by the executive admissions committee, faculty interviewers evaluate applicants on ten items using a six-point scale (0=unacceptable to 5=outstanding). Interviewers also provide narrative comments on each applicant. An applicant’s numeric score and the interviewer comments are used by the admissions committee in making the decision to admit.
Unpublished internal survey data reveal that applicants rank the interview high in importance among events on the interview day. Other elements of the interview day include a general orientation; a student-led tour; a financial aid presentation; a one-on-one interview with an enrolled student of the same gender as the applicant, when possible; and a panel discussion on student life on which at least one female student is represented. The admissions staff makes a concentrated effort to invite an equal number of male and female applicants to each interview day.
The Office of Admissions provided data on applicant gender, interviewer gender, and applicant decision to enroll (matriculate, not matriculate) for all accepted students for the 2001 to 2005 entering classes. Excluded from the sample were applicants who were accepted as alternates but who did not subsequently enroll and applicants who did not identify their gender. The final sample consisted of 1,192 applicants, 62.5 percent male (n=745), 37.5 percent female (n=447), 57 percent matriculated (n=693), 43 percent not matriculated (n=499). In the five years examined, forty-three faculty members (thirty-one male and twelve female) served as admissions interviewers. The investigators confirmed the gender of faculty interviewers with the Office of Human Resources.
Sixty percent of the applicant-interviewer dyads (n=711) were gender-concordant (male applicant with male interviewer, n=588, or female applicant with female interviewer, n=123) and 40 percent were discordant (n=481). Given the categorical nature of the data, chi square was used to investigate the relationship between applicant-interviewer gender pairing (concordant, discordant) and enrollment status (matriculated, not matriculated). The contingency table used in the analysis is presented in Table 1. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS version 11.5. This investigation did not require Institutional Review Board approval because it used existing data that were coded such that neither applicants nor interviewers were identifiable.
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Results
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The omnibus chi square test showed no relationship between applicant-interviewer gender concordance and decision to enroll, 
2=3.07 (1, N=1192), p=.08. Separate analyses by gender revealed the same results, males, 2=.006 (1, N=745), p=.937, females, 2=.004, (1, N=447), p=.951. These findings suggest that pairing applicants with gender-concordant faculty interviewers was not an effective means of increasing enrollment in dental school for males or females in this sample.
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Discussion
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This study found no relationship between applicant-interviewer gender concordance and the decision to enroll in one dental school. The assumption that pairing female applicants with female interviewers increases enrollment of women is not supported by the findings presented here. On the contrary, the findings appear to suggest that research on the impact of applicant-interviewer gender concordance on the decision to accept a job generalizes to an educational context.
Whereas interviewer gender appears to have no impact on the decision to enroll, the school has collected data on what appeals to students. Unpublished internal survey data from the entering classes of 2001 to 2005 clearly indicate that the most important factor among all matriculants is the school’s clinical emphasis, followed by school facilities and the three-year program. These findings partially support Whitehead et al.’s conclusion that reputation and curriculum are important elements in the decision to enroll at a particular dental school.10
Of greater interest for this study, however, are the reasons accepted students decided not to enroll. In 2002 the Office of Admissions began surveying applicants who declined the school’s offer of admission. The survey asks respondents to rank from among a list of fifteen options the top three reasons for not enrolling. Options include location, cost of living, tuition, distance from home, and whether the school’s mission is in accordance with the applicant’s interests. Surveys were color-coded by gender beginning in 2004, and a new item was added that asked if the respondent would have preferred to be interviewed by a gender-concordant faculty member.
Preliminary data indicate that across all years the most important reason for declining an offer of admission was tuition. Annual tuition at the school is considerably higher than the average for all private dental schools, and the total cost of education is consistently ranked among the top five in the country.21 Other important reasons for declining admission were cost of living, location, and the desire to attend a school closer to home. No applicant indicated that having a gender-concordant faculty interviewer would have impacted their choice of school. Although the survey responses appear to support in part the findings presented here and those of Whitehead et al.,10 they should be interpreted with caution. The average response rate was below 50 percent, and the instrument was revised each year, sometimes significantly, making comparisons across years difficult. Moreover, response tracking by gender has begun only recently, resulting in a sample size too small to reliably determine whether differences exist by gender.
Survey responses may suggest that women are less likely than men to enroll at a school far from home. Given the stressful nature of dental education, this finding appears to support research showing females under stress are more likely to depend on social networks for support, including family and close friends.22 Women may also be less willing than men to assume the large debt associated with attending a private school. The average indebtedness of graduates of the school in this study is considerably higher than the national average for private and private state-related schools.23 It may also be that female applicants prefer a school with a community outreach rather than a private practice model. Scarbecz and Ross found that women were more attracted to dentistry for its people orientation, whereas men had a stronger business orientation.24
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Conclusion
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This investigation found that applicant- interviewer gender concordance was not associated with an increase in female enrollment at one dental school. This finding leaves the reasons for the school’s low yield and comparatively low female enrollment unclear. Increasing the number of qualified females interviewed or implementing outreach efforts specifically aimed at women could contribute to increasing the school’s yield of qualified females. Future research on factors important to female applicants to dental school is recommended.
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Footnotes
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Dr. Bender is Director of Academic Affairs; Dr. Burk is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Anatomy; and Ms. Candito is Director of Student Administration and Housing—all at the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. Direct correspondence and requests for reprints to Dr. Daniel J. Bender, Office of Academic Affairs, University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry, 2155 Webster Street, San Francisco, CA 94115; 415-929-6420 phone; 415-929-6654 fax; dbender{at}pacific.edu.
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- Gray B, Stoddard JJ. Patient-physician pairing: does racial and ethnic congruity influence selection of a regular physician? J Community Health 1997; 22(4):247–59.[Medline]
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Abstract
Method
