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By Catherine Robertson Souter
In a revision designed to streamline and clarify the criteria used
by the American Psychological Association (APA) to approve sponsors
of continuing education programs, the APA's Continuing Professional
Education Committee (CPEC) has eliminated, condensed and combined
several areas of the previous standards and is in process of collecting
input on proposed changes.
The goal of the revision, last done in 1996, is to provide the
CPEC and the sponsors with clear-cut information on how the APA
decides which sponsors will have their programs approved.
"Because we use these standards to help us in reviewing programs
and because the sponsors have to use the standards in order to administer
their programs, we are very aware of times when the standards just
don't seem to be working. Some guidelines are not helpful in making
decisions or are not clear enough and there were some things missing,"
says Ellen L. Nuffer, Ed.D., CPEC chairperson, associate professor
of education and director of the Faculty Resource Center at Keene
State College in Keene, N.H.
The guidelines for technology had to be updated, says Nuffer, especially
as they have resulted in changes to the ways programs are delivered.
Revisions have taken place over the past three years and proposed
changes were submitted to state licensing boards, state associations
and current sponsors for input. Changes can be viewed on the APA's
Web site where members are encouraged to submit feedback. The new
criteria were also scheduled to be discussed at a public forum during
the APA's August annual convention.
Feedback from sponsors has been positive, says Nuffer. "They are
also looking forward to some changes," noting that the revisions
are designed to simplify the process on both sides.
Initially, sponsors appeared concerned that several parts of the
criteria were dropped. However, explains Nuffer, although those
parts, including a separate section on ethics standards and home-study
criteria were deleted, their content was incorporated into the rest
of the standards.
"With the ethics standard," she says, "we found ourselves engaged
in conversations about ethical issues when we were talking about
another content area. We said that we really should have ethics
issues throughout the document to ensure that sponsors are thinking
about ethics when they put together the content and when they put
together their complaint procedures and as they think about how
instructors are interacting with participants."
The home study section was also eliminated because, as Nuffer points
out, technology is providing a number of ways to deliver course
information - from telephone to video to computer. They realized
that instead of trying to have sections for every possibility, it
made more sense to expect that all courses, no matter how they are
delivered, must meet the general criteria.
The new criteria also addresses content of the programs offered.
Although the APA does not approve individual courses, only the sponsors
of the courses, they look at the offerings to determine which sponsors
will be approved. According to the revision, the content of the
programs must provide professional education for psychologists.
"We ask if it is really appropriate for continuing professional
education in psychology," Nuffer says. "Or, is it more of a business
practice? If it is a course on how to use software, does it really
rest on a methodological or practice-knowledge base? For example,
software to track billing of clients would probably not be approved.
But if it was a piece of software that was integral to helping you
look at scoring on a particular assessment of intelligence functioning
or personality functioning, maybe that would be."
Another important change, says Nuffer, is the elimination of criteria
for co-sponsors. Where the previous criteria outlined a separate
process to have outside companies or organizations approved for
working with a sponsor, the revision simply states that sponsors
are responsible for making sure that all programs meet APA criteria
standards.
"One of the proposed changes that didn't get as much reaction from
sponsors as the CPEC had expected is the section on program evaluation.
Sponsors are asked to institute a system to check whether program
attendees learned the materials. Attendees do not need to be graded
or credited according to what they learned, nor does the APA expect
a report on each program's results. The evaluations are meant to
encourage sponsors to evaluate the quality of their offerings and
make changes if necessary.
Some of the other areas that have seen changes include an elimination
of a request for information on the sponsor's budgeting and resources
and the integration of requirements for choosing instructors into
a section on educational planning.
The revisions were posted on the APA Web site for a 90-day period
starting in June. Public comment will be accepted through September
3. After that time, any changes that the committee deems appropriate
will be incorporated into the revisions and the new criteria will
be submitted to the APA board. The criteria will likely be in place
by the fall.
For more information, visit www.apa.org/ce.
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