STUDENT SPEAK | The Count Starts Here: The 2020 Audiology Student Census

By Stephanie Tittle, Stephanie Berry, Jessica Lewis, and J. Riley DeBacker

This article is a part of the July/August 2020, Volume 32, Number 4, Audiology Today issue.

The beginning of 2020 marked the start of the 22nd decennial census of the United States.

The first census was conducted in 1790 during the presidency of George Washington. At the time of the first census, the U.S. population was 3.9 million. Today, the population is approximately 330 million, a number that depicts America's changes and expansion (Gauthier, 2020; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020).

U.S. census data is used to inform the allocation of federal and local resources. An accurate and complete counting of all of the individuals in the U.S. is of paramount importance to ensure these resources are appropriately distributed for the nation’s population.

Introduction

Similar to the purpose of the U.S. census, it is crucial to record student population changes over time to provide adequate resources to serve students appropriately.

The Student Academy of Audiology (SAA) identified a gap in knowledge about the audiology student population. In February 2020, the SAA distributed the inaugural Audiology Student Census (the Census). The Census captured the current demographics, characteristics, and interests of this population. The results  should interest key stakeholders, including universities (undergraduate and graduate programs), accrediting organizations, professional organizations, and audiology patients.

To the authors’ knowledge, the SAA was the first to systematically report and publicly share the demographics, financial status, interests, and preferences of audiology students, as reported by those students. Health-care professions with similar clinical doctorate educational models have been collecting demographic, financial, and other detailed data on their graduate students for 10 or more years.

The SAA intends to formally share in the future all data collected from the Census. This article highlights the main findings regarding audiology student demographics and compares and contrasts the Census results with numbers available for professional audiologists and clinical doctoral students in optometry and dentistry.