The Brookbush Institute Publishes an Article Explaining why "Accredited" does not mean "High Quality" for Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) Certifications
What does accreditation currently mean for Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) Certifications?
NEW YORK, April 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Accreditation, approval, and 3rd party review should be transparent processes that make it easy for consumers to identify high-quality certification providers. Unfortunately, quality assurance is a complicated topic.
Brookbush Institute: What is NCCA Accreditation?
There is a common misconception that 3rd party accreditors review the "quality' of a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) certification program, but many accreditors only review the quality of one aspect of certification. The largest accreditor in the fitness industry ensures that a pre-constructed test creation process was used (with the intent to improve the "fairness" of exams). For example, they mandate that a certification provider regularly reviews exam results using psychometrics and makes improvements based on data. However, this accreditor does not perform peer review of a program's content, learning objectives, lesson plan development, or delivery. They simply were not designed to perform this function. Their intention is to improve assessment quality, not to ensure content quality.
Peer-review has grown as a standard since the promotion of evidence-based practice, and it is the standard for the accreditation of higher education programs (e.g. colleges and universities). However, it is not the standard for professional continuing education and certification programs (e.g. CEs and CPTs). Although a few programs exist that provide peer-review for professional continuing education (e.g. American Council of Education), certifications that have completed this level of review are relatively rare.
"Accredited does not mean high quality, it just means something was reviewed. The standard in the fitness industry is accredited CPT certifications that include a reviewed exam, but the bulk of the certification itself has NOT been reviewed. No 3rd party, expert peer-review of content, course design, or course delivery." says Dr. Brent Brookbush, CEO at Brookbush Institute
The Brookbush Institute recommends that a larger effort is made to include or replace current standards for accreditation of CPT certifications with accreditors/approvers that include peer-review of a certification's content, course design, and education delivery. In short, more effort is needed to ensure that the entire offering of a CPT program is reviewed, not just the exam.
Brookbush Institute
3 Certifications, 160+ Courses, and so much more. "Like the Netflix of courses and certifications for fitness, performance, physical rehabilitation, and sports medicine professionals."
For the complete article: What is NCCA Accreditation?
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SOURCE Brookbush Institute
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