What is NCCA accreditation?

What is NCCA accreditation?

by Dr. Brent Brookbush DPT, PT, MS, CPT, HMS, IMT

Quick Summary:

• Common Question: Is the Brookbush Institute Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) certification accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA)?
• Answer: No. And, we likely never will be. No certification in the fitness industry should be. No personal trainer, fitness company, training program, or employer of fitness professionals should consider NCCA standards sufficient.

We Support Accreditation

It is important to note that we support the idea of credentialing, accreditation, and/or learning evaluation. To be more specific, we support the idea of 3rd party, systematic and objective peer-review by subject matter experts, under the supervision of a national council developed for competency assurance. This sounds like a bit of legalize, but in this case the details matter. The NCCA standards do not include peer-review, and the organization was not developed with the intent to ensure a certification promotes professional competence. We have been approved by nearly 20 organizations, including continuing education approval from most of the largest professional certification programs in the industry, and additionally an organization designed for 3rd party peer-review, learning evaluation, professional competence, and alignment with post-secondary education (The American Council on Education is what the NCCA wishes it was, and their national registrations recommends that the Brookbush Institute CPT is worthy of 3 university credits).

Where We Draw the Line

We support attempts to enforce minimum standards of education quality, but we draw the line when an accrediting, credentialing, or certifying body fails to perform the minimum duties expected by the industry. And/or the institution tries to impose a rule or regulation that will detract from a student’s learning experience.

Common Misconception

There is a common misconception that the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) is an accreditor of Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) certification programs in the fitness industry. They are not. The only thing they certify is that an organization performs a needs analysis and uses the NCCA specific test creation criteria (which are flawed, to say the least). Despite claiming to be a 3rd party accreditor of certifications, the NCCA does not perform the basic duties that most fitness and training professionals would expect from a national 3rd party accreditor. They do not advocate on behalf of students, they do not ensure curriculum aligns with professional or post-secondary education needs, they do not evaluate the quality of content (peer-review), they do not evaluate quality of content delivery (enforce education standards), nor do they ensure that student assessments (tests) enhance the learning experience. The fact that the NCCA standards do not include expert peer-review of a certification's content should be enough, by itself, to dismiss this accreditation as relevant in the fitness industry, and perhaps any scientific field. It is very possible, and perhaps the standard in the fitness industry, that NCCA accredited exams are written to assess knowledge of content that would not pass systematic review by a panel of 3rd party industry experts (peer-review). A company claiming that they are "fully accredited" based on NCCA accreditation, is being disingenuous at best. How an organization that forces certifying bodies into a pre-designed testing process that purposefully separates educators form test creation, could be called a national 3rd party accreditation, is baffling, and perhaps appalling.

Shameful

We believe that the NCCA, and some certification companies accredited by the NCCA, use the misconception that “NCCA accreditation” relates to the quality of content, to imply that other certifications are less valid. This is at best unfortunate, and at worst may represent unfair business practices.

Our Recommendation

It is our recommendation that professional certification programs in the fitness industry would be better off without accreditation, when compared to what results from NCCA standards. However, we also recommend that there are a few alternatives with far better accreditation standards that could result in large improvements certification programs.

For Additional Resources on Certification and Accreditation:

• The Best Personal Training Certification?
• How Much Does a Personal Training Certification Cost (Including Hidden Fees)?
• Building a Better Corrective Exercise Certification
• The "Real Cost" of Manual Therapy Certification
• Certification Cannot Change the Scope of Practice of a Movement Professional
• What is a Fully Accredited Personal Trainer Certification?
• What is NCCA accreditation?
• We Think About Continuing Education Credit Approval (So you don't have to)
• State-by-State Course Approval and Credit Requirements for PTs and PTAs
• Approval and Accreditation of Courses and Certifications Could Be MUCH Better!

Is the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) an accreditor of Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) Certifications?

There is a common misconception that the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) is an accreditor of Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) certifications. They are not. The only thing they certify is that an organization performs a needs analysis and uses the NCCA specific test creation criteria (which are flawed, to say the least). Despite claiming to be a 3rd party accreditor of certifications, the NCCA does not perform the basic duties that most professionals would expect from a national accreditor. They do not advocate on behalf of students, they do not ensure curriculum aligns with professional or post-secondary education needs, they do not evaluate the quality of content (peer-review), they do not evaluate quality of content delivery (enforce education standards), nor do they ensure that student assessments (tests) enhance the learning experience. The fact that NCCA accreditation does not include expert peer-review of a certification's content should be enough, by itself, to dismiss this accreditation as relevant in any scientific field. It is very possible, and perhaps the standard in the fitness industry, that NCCA accredited exams are written to assess knowledge of content that would not pass systematic review by a panel of 3rd party industry experts (peer-review). A company claiming they are "fully accredited" based on NCCA accreditation, is being disingenuous at best. The only thing NCCA accreditation signifies, is the use of NCCA test creation processes. In summary, it is the opinion of most education professionals (and we hope in your professional) that a "true" 3rd party accreditor would perform the following duties:

• Advocate on behalf of the learner
• Ensure the learning objectives and curriculum are in alignment with post-secondary education or professional needs.
• Ensure content accuracy, quality, and completeness (comprehensively covers relevant topics) via a review by a group of experts in the subject matter taught (3rd party objective peer-review).
• Ensure instructional design and delivery meets evidence-based teaching standards.
• Promote evaluation procedures (student assessments) that enhance learning and match learning objectives.

The NCCA does not even attempt these duties. The only attempt they make is to ensure a process that creates a "fair test," and their success at achieving this task is highly questionable. In fact, as you will see below, the NCCA testing processes are so bureaucratic, convoluted, and flawed, they actually create multiple barriers for the student and the advancement of education in our industry. Most disheartening, we believe that some NCCA accredited institutions are using the misconception that the NCCA adjudicates content quality, to imply that other certifications are less valid. This is at best unfortunate, and at worst may represent unfair business practices. The small number of NCCA accredited certifications in the fitness industry, have only proven that they are willing to develop exams using NCCA specific criteria, and that they are willing to absorb a 5 - 6 figure expense. Although it can only be called analogous to collusion, it is similar in that these organizations are complicit in a scheme to pay an exorbitant entry fee, and maintain a lie that asserts NCCA accredited certifications have higher quality content, with the goal of reducing the number of competitors in the CPT certification market. This not a strategy for improving the quality of education in the industry. The quality of content, quality of delivery, ease of access, and affordability of a CPT certification, should determine which companies are industry leaders.

We Support Accreditation

It is important to note that we support the idea of credentialing, accreditation, and/or learning evaluation. To be more specific, we support the idea of 3rd party, systematic and objective peer-review by subject matter experts, under the supervision of a national council developed for competency assurance. This sounds like a bit of legalize, but in this case the details matter. The NCCA standards do not include peer-review, and the organization was not developed with the intent to ensure a certification promotes professional competence. We have been approved by nearly 20 organizations, including continuing education approval from most of the largest professional certification programs in the industry, and additionally an organization designed for 3rd party peer-review, learning evaluation, professional competence, and alignment with post-secondary education (The American Council on Education is what the NCCA wishes it was, and their national registrations recommends that the Brookbush Institute CPT is worthy of 3 university credits).

Where We Draw the Line

We support attempts to enforce minimum standards of education quality, but we draw the line when an accrediting, credentialing, or certifying body fails to perform the minimum duties expected by the industry. And/or the institution tries to impose a rule or regulation that will detract from a student’s learning experience. Most often these detractions relate to extremely high course accreditation application fees for small markets (e.g. the Ohio State Board of Physical Therapy, or the Canadian Athletic Therapy Association expecting nearly $20,000/year for approval). Obviously these fees are likely to result in a large increase in course development expenses, and these expenses are likely to be passed on to the student to maintain financial viability of the education program. However, occasionally accreditors either intentionally or unintentionally add a rule that would create an obstacle for students. We did start the NCCA accreditation process, but we had to withdraw when we realized that many of the NCCA policies would force the Brookbush Institute to change the platform in ways that would reduce the quality of education, and/or detract from our mission to increase the access, convenience, and affordability of education. Those issues are discussed below. Additionally, we would like to be clear that the issues discussed below would not be unique to the Brookbush Institute . We humbly recommend that all NCCA accredited certifications in the industry find alternative strategies for 3rd party accreditation, and/or that the NCCA uses this article as a blueprint to modify their flawed practices. Note, based on the criteria above, we are one of the only certification and continuing education providers to have acquired a true 3rd party, national learning evaluation. Our review was performed by the American Council of Education , proof of accreditation can be found on their national registry (click here ), and you can read more about this accreditation here: What is a Fully Accredited Personal Trainer Certification? .

NCCA Does Nothing to Validate the Quality of Content

First, and perhaps most importantly, the NCCA does not evaluate the content of any CPT certification. There is no attempt at peer-review. They only impose regulations with the intent of improving the “fairness” of exams, and even that is flawed, as is discussed below. Read that again. It is entirely possible to create an NCCA accredited exam, that assesses the knowledge of horrible content. For this reason, many of the accreditors that assess our courses for certification to offer professionals continuing education credits (for certification and license renewal) should be held in higher regard. Many of these continuing education accreditations not only review course development processes, but the content of individual courses. These include, but are not limited to, accreditations like the BOC (NATA), AOTA, the Australian Physiotherapy Council, REPS Ireland, CIMSPA, Fitness Australia, etc. Based on our knowledge of the course content of many of the “NCCA accredited” CPT Certifications, we are confidant that fewer than half could pass more than one of the accreditations just listed, and only a couple would have a chance at passing all of them. This is a profoundly serious issue. Having the NCCA accreditation results in the presumption of quality content, but if the content of many of these certifications was critiqued using standard instructional design review, most would fail. The NCCA does require a professional needs analysis survey; however, this type of survey by itself would result in questionable curriculum decisions. For example, performing a needs analysis of 100s of fitness influencers is likely to imply that CPT certifications should focus on the education necessary to construct a quick weight loss program, a lower ab toning routine, and/or a 6-week program for bigger glutes. Although this may accurately reflect the market that potential personal trainers may be entering, peer-review by subject matter experts is necessary to identify that quick weight loss is dangerous and has little long-term efficacy, toning and lower abs are both myths, and training the glutes alone is likely less effective than an integrated lower body weight training program. Further, these topics alone do not result in a comprehensive curriculum that accurately reflects the knowledge and skills needed to earn a livable wage in the fitness industry. That is, development of a breadth of knowledge that would address the issues and goals normally exhibited by a full schedule of clients. Although a combination of information gathering methodologies is likely best to ensure learning objectives and curriculum are in alignment with professional needs, at the very least, matching objectives to the curriculum of post-secondary education is likely to result in a more reliable system for content development recommendations, when compared to a needs analysis alone. Further, matching objectives to post-secondary curriculum can be used to provide adult learners with opportunities to earn college credits while getting certified. Another disturbing result of the the NCCA's lack of peer-review is the lack of any attempt to ensure that instructional design and delivery meet evidence-based teaching standards. There is no attempt to ensure that an organization has matched learning objectives with professional needs and learning assessments. There is no attempt to ensure that lesson plans and courses are designed based on teaching best practices. Organizations do not have to demonstrate that content is delivered by instructors with teaching experience and adequate credentials, and there is no audit system to ensure student and instructor feedback is used to catch and remedy mistakes (e.g. typos) in content and assessments, much less improve programs. If you have ever wondered why so many certifications programs do not feel like high-quality education experiences, and worse, fail to get better, this may be a large contributing factor. And, when you find out what the NCCA attempts to do, and the road blocks it creates for improvement, you may wonder why the industry has put up with this accreditor for so long.

NCCA Reduces the Quality of Exams

Perhaps the largest issue with what the NCCA attempts, in their intent to create a "fair exam", is they separate content developers and assessment/test creators. This means your best educators and content developers cannot write the test questions for the content they have developed. Many people do not realize that writing a good multiple-choice question, and a good exam, are skill sets associated with an individual’s knowledge and ability as an educator. Great exams are learning experiences unto themselves. A professionally written exam should leave the student with a feeling that the exam fairly assessed their knowledge and clearly highlighted areas that need improvement. Further, a great exam can serve the purpose of giving a dedicated educator one more chance to reinforce the material. This can be done by writing questions that give weight to the most important topics, highlighting common areas of confusion with well-written distractors, and even clarifying certain topics by writing questions in a way that forces a student to think about a problem in a particular way. A great multiple-choice question is relevant, inspires thought, and challenges a student with a question and choices that they are likely to face in the real world. If the previous paragraph was too theoretical, or idealistic, then perhaps we can consider something simple, like “clarity.” Expressing ideas and writing with clarity is a skill that takes years of practice. Just ask any writer how hard it is, how much practice it takes, and how much time they spend trying to express their ideas in a way that bridges the gap between the writer’s intent and the reader’s understanding. It is not easy to write an exam question that is clear and concise. That is, write a test question that tests a student’s knowledge and not their ability to comprehend a poorly written question. A perfectly clear question leaves no room for confusion about what is being asked. We want to ensure that the reason a question is answered correctly or incorrectly is 100% dependent on the student’s knowledge of the topic. That is, the correct answer is clear, and each distractor (wrong answer) would “bait” individuals who do not deserve to pass, based solely on their knowledge. Every question that is answered incorrectly by an individual who has the pre-requisite knowledge, is likely to be an issue with how well the question was written. To increase “fairness” the NCCA demands that the content creators are not involved in exam writing, forcing the writing of exams to be outsourced. Considering the number of individuals whom the Brookbush Institute (BI) has interviewed, hired, and trained for the BI writing team, we can say with near certainty, that the number of individuals with a combination of professional experience in the field and experience writing quality exams is prohibitively small. And, those who do have this combination of skills are likely to be very expensive to recruit. Most companies handle the outsourcing by recruiting volunteers who may have significant experience in the field but are unlikely to have any knowledge of education theory, item (multiple-choice question) writing, or even experience with technical writing. So, despite that the NCCA means well, in their desire to create "fair" examinations, they have created a policy that forces certification companies to either accept exam questions written by individuals with no exam writing experience (the option selected by all organization we are aware of), or increase education costs to recruit the few individuals with dual experience. I am not sure how the NCCA considers low-quality questions and increased cost to students “more fair”. Is it any wonder why so many of the certification exams in the industry are so poorly written? We should also consider whether the separation between content development and exam creation is necessary for our industry. It is likely a mandatory prerequisite to have formal exam creation processes when developing a test like a board exam for a licensed professional. Especially, when that board exam is the last step of a degree program offered at one of a dozen, or 100s of accredited (based on content) degree programs. The National Physical Therapy Exam is a good example (NPTE) of a single exam that all entry-level physical therapists must pass, even though students are educated at one of more than 200 CAPTE approved physical therapy programs in the USA. Passing the exam is a mandatory prerequisite for practicing as a physical therapist in the USA, dictated by law. In this case, you want to create an exam that is based on generally agreed-upon standards, not biased by input from any single program, and every measure is taken to ensure the exam is fair; because after all, livelihoods and patient safety are at stake. However, this is not how the fitness industry developed. Certification in our industry is nothing more or less than a recognizable “stamp” from a brand or company, signifying the successful completion of a set of brand-specific educational content. Certification is not even necessary to work as a personal trainer in most states, as most states do not have any legislation prohibiting an individual from practicing personal training without a certification. What dictates the need for certification in our industry (in the USA and Canada) is employer preference, and the ability to attain liability insurance. This brings us back to the question of whether the NCCA accreditation is necessary. Because certification content is not uniform in our industry, tests cannot be uniform either. At this point, for example, we cannot expect that the Brookbush Institute , the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and the American College of Sports Medicine, etc., would have identical exams. Further, the NCCA is doing nothing, and recommending nothing that would aid certifying organizations in developing uniform standards in the quality of content, or the content-centers covered. Ideally, tests are an assessment of the student’s knowledge of the certification content. Since content is not uniform, the best assessments will accurately reflect the learning objectives of the individual certifications. The best way to ensure congruence between learning objectives, course content, and the assessment/exam, is for the content creators to write the exam. This is actually the standard methodology throughout education. Consider all the exams you took throughout your schooling; chances are they were written by the teachers teaching the course. Again, the addition of NCCA accreditation is doing little more than reducing congruence/validity between course content and assessment/exam. It is worth mentioning here, that one of the intents of the NCCA accreditation process, is that competence is the only prerequisite to take an industry exam and that a certification cannot force an individual to buy a textbook or course. The idea is that in a world that was “ideally fair”, that competency would be the sole determinant for attaining a credential (as opposed to brand-specific knowledge). Although this idea is nice in theory, there are two major flaws with applying it to the fitness industry. First, as mentioned above, content is not uniform across certifications from different companies. Second, the NCCA does not seem to have any interest in policing this policy. If this policy was held as a requisite to maintain accreditation, certifying organizations could not write exam questions specific to trademarked, unique, or creative content. All exam questions would have to pertain to a standard sets of knowledge that the industry agreed was essential (for example, exercise physiology, anatomy, kinesiology, etc.). But that is definitely not the case in our industry. For example, if the NCCA policed accreditations according to their own guidelines, the Brookbush Institute could not ask about Predictive Models of Dysfunction, NASM could not ask about the OPT™ model, ACE could not ask about the IFT™ model, and ACSM could not ask about their specific criteria for risk stratification. We are not implying that these certifications are doing anything wrong, in fact, we believe these are the strengths of those programs; however, we are implying that the NCCA does not hold to, or police, their own policies.

NCCA Adds Obstacles and Expenses to Improving Education

Next, the NCCA adds many layers of unnecessary bureaucracy to exam creation. They expect that exams are developed from panel consensus, industry surveys, and are reviewed by psychometricians. Not only do NCCA accredited institutions have to accept exam questions from volunteers, but every step of the exam development process has to be approved by a board, based on survey data collected by the certification company, and then has to be tested by a psychometrician for statistically significant accuracy (note, this last step could be easily performed by a relatively simple computer program, if exams are taken online). Further, the NCCA’s policies almost force that all exams are taken at a testing center. Although they suggest that a secure online exam is possible, prior to the Covid epidemic, no company had achieved NCCA accreditation without forcing exams to be taken at a testing center. (Note, this is obviously another area they are not policing, as many NCCA accredited certifications do allow online testing. It is worth noting that online testing may be available following the pandemic; however, they are still enforcing proctored exams). Whatever the intent of these layers of bureaucracy, the result is incredibly slow development and incredibly expensive exams. Further, these exams lose validity with every step away from the content creator (presuming content creators are experienced as educators and subject matter experts). Forget about experienced educators spending 2.5 hours to write a beautiful 10 question exam at the end of well-designed modular course. With this process, it may take months to finish any exam, cost 10s of 1000s of dollars, and the student is forced to schedule and pay for a proctored exam. And, can you imagine what it would take to fix a typo, remove a question that is confusing students, update a question to improve clarity, or add a question based on a recent course update. As an institution that has more than 4500 published test questions, we can attest to the fact that changes are made frequently. No matter how well-intended or skilled the exam creators, having 1000s of individuals take exams reveals hidden flaws that should be addressed immediately when found. We know that every year, if not every month, our exams improve, thanks to feedback from our colleagues. If the Brookbush Institute went through this travesty of a process that is NCCA accreditation, it would be the end of beautifully written exams, then end of near-instant updates to content and exams based on real-time feedback, and because exams would become so expensive to create, it would be the end of short (1 – 4 hour) modular courses with short exams. Further, forcing proctoring of exams means the end of taking exams anywhere at anytime (desktop or mobile), and because proctoring is a relative expense (rather than a fixed cost) that increases with each exam taken, it would mean the return of a horrific single-shot summative final exam for a large additional fee, and the end of the one-low monthly membership price for all education.

Why Has Nobody Spoken Out About These Issues with the NCCA?

Some of you are likely thinking, “Why are these issues not more widely known?”. Well, just to find out about the NCCA accreditation process requires the purchase of a $1000.00+/year membership to the Institute of Credentialing Excellence (ICE), before you can apply for the actual NCCA accreditation. Further, our experience with ICE, was weeks of e-mails and messages to finally get someone on the phone to answer questions about whether the NCCA accreditation was the right decision for our company. Not to mention, the attitude of the representative we spoke with seemed genuinely bewildered that we would question the processes. These issues result in the NCCA, either purposefully or incidentally, hiding their practices behind a paywall. Obviously, “NCCA accredited” institutions have zero motivation to spend the time or money to develop content like this article, because they are benefiting from the misconception that NCCA accreditation is proof of their "higher quality". We will continue adding to this article as we continue to battle back against processes that are inhibiting the improvement of education in our industry. We can also promise the Brookbush Institute will not be continuing with the NCCA accreditation process, and our members do not have to worry about us changing our platform to match their criteria. Further, our Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) Certification has gone through national 3rd party accreditation and peer-review, certifications are accepted by most employers (with guaranteed interviews for BI CPTs at select employers), are well-respected in the industry, and may be used to attain liability insurance.

• Liability Insurance Coverage: The Brookbush Institute has partnered with respected liability insurance providers in the USA and Canada to aid in reducing the cost of liability insurance:
  • United States - insurefitness.com/partners/brookbush
  • Canada - www.ineedapolicy.com

We do look forward to continuing to pushing the industry forward, improving access, convenience, affordability, delivery, and accuracy of educational content in our industry. We hope that we continue to get closer to building the platform we all wish existed, thanks to our wonderful colleagues who have supported us every step of the way.

© 2022 Brent Brookbush (B2C Fitness, LLC d.b.a. Brookbush Institute )

Comments, critiques, and questions are welcome!