An Overview of Neurodiagnostic Enrollments: A Qualitative Study and Projections for the Future of Neurodiagnostics

Higher education enrollments have trended downward over the last several years and fallen further due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem addressed in this study was low student enrollment in neurodiagnostic programs in the United States, resulting in an increasing shortage of neurodiagnostic professionals. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of neurodiagnostic program directors on the low enrollments. Human capital theory, the theory of planned behavior, and self-determination theory were used as the framework for this study. Program directors from nine neurodiagnostic programs were interviewed using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions and addressed enrollment trends, visibility of the neurodiagnostic career path, and neurodiagnostic licensure. Inductive and reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data and identify emerging themes and determine the causes of low enrollments. The results demonstrated a lack of visibility of the field of neurodiagnostics, the lack of clinical sites, and a lack of standardization, impact low enrollments. Future research could incorporate a larger group of program directors and broaden the study to include additional modalities in the field of neurodiagnostics. Implications of these findings may be that hospital administrators review entry-level requirements for new hires, advocate for more clinical sites, and engage in better marketing campaigns to encourage increased visibility of neurodiagnostic programs and higher enrollments.