Thank you for your interest in the Institute for Credentialing Excellence's research efforts. We are currently raising funds to support several projects that are of paramount interest and importance to the credentialing industry. Research is a critical focus for ICE as it provides new information for quality programs and services, as well as for advancement in credentialing.

Your donations will be a key element of our success. Friend research dollars will cover research expenses such as survey development, administration, and result analysis and reporting; in person meetings; report publication; and marketing.

The following is a list of current research projects and information on how you can support these initiatives. 

1.  Best Practices in Certification  -  A project that will identify best practices for the development and management of quality professional certification programs. Information gathered through this project included expert interviews and focus groups using the NCCA Standards as a template for discussion. During the 2010 annual conference a town hall will be conducted to discuss the information gathered to date. A final report is anticipated for 2011.
   
2. Value of Credentialing Tools - The development of tools that members can use to assess the value of their credentialing programs. Each of the tools is grounded in literature on the value of certification as seen from the perspective of the credential holder, the stakeholder, intrinsically and extrinsically . Field tests are being conducted in summer 2010 to establish the measurement properties of each tool, and the completed tools will likely be available at the Annual Conference in November 2010. 
   
3. Bi-annual Benchmarking Study  -  A report covering key statistics of credentialing organization, such as size, industry, financials, staff and other data. The next report is to be released in 2011. 
   
4. Guidance document on non-written and performance assessment instruments - An update of the original NCCA Guidelines for Non-Written Examinations published in 1991. The revised document will provide useful information about various types of non-written examinations, their development, use, scoring, reporting, and evaluation.   This document will be published in Fall 2010.

Please click here to complete the contribution form.

Special thanks for the members of the 2010 Research and Development Committee and to their organizations for supporting these important efforts:

James Henderson , PhD, Committee Chair, Castle
James Hogan, PhD, Board Liaison, ACT Inc
Bhaskar Dawadi, PhD, SMT, Inc
Cindy Durley, MEd, MBA, Dental Assisting National Board, Inc
Lawrence Fabrey, PhD, Applied Measurement Professionals
Sandy Friend, American Culinary Federation
Lucinda Harman, RN, PhD, American Chiropractic Neurology Board
Patricia Muenzen, Professional Examination Service
Shawn O'Brien, National Board for Certified Counselors
Jeffrey Weaver, OD, MBA, MS, American Board of Optometry
John Wickett, PhD, Financial Planners Standards Council
Shannon Willison, MA, HumRRO
Patricia Young, MA, CPS Human Resource Services
Anthony Zara, PhD, Pearson