Advancing Professionalism in Continuing Education: Development and Early Outcomes of Accreditation Council for...

Continuing education (CE) professionals play a central role in maintaining the integrity, independence, and operational quality of accredited CE programs, yet the workforce lacks standardized mechanisms to demonstrate applied competence in accreditation and data stewardship.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education developed two certificate programs, Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited CE and Data Management in Accredited CE, each culminating in a competency-based, remotely proctored assessment. Assessment development included blueprinting, expert review, pilot testing with novices and CE professionals, classical item analysis, and empirical performance-based standard setting using pilot performance data. Each assessment included scenario-based multiple-choice items and a single open-response item. Reliability and item performance were evaluated in the initial operational cohort.

In the first cohort, 118 participants completed the Standards assessment and 76 completed the Data Management assessment. Mean scores were 80.1 (range 29-97) and 84.9 (range 46-99), with 80% and 84% meeting the predetermined passing standard. Internal consistency was high for the Standards assessment (KR-20 0.89) and acceptable for Data Management (KR-20 0.69). Open-response responses showed consistent identification of core problems but greater variability in systems-level planning and communication strategies. Learner feedback was positive, with >80% indicating they would recommend the programs and reported difficulty consistent with applied, judgment-based assessment.

Early findings provide validity evidence supporting certificate-based assessments as a practical approach to verifying applied competence among CE professionals and may help professionalize the CE workforce by offering defensible, role-specific markers of competence.