How will CAA use the Guidance on Developing Quality Interprofessional Education for the Health Professions related to programs’ activities for IPE?

The Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative (HPAC) and the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education released Guidance on Developing Quality Interprofessional Education for the Health Professions  [PDF] in February 2019. The guidance was developed through a multiyear, multiphase consensus process aimed at supporting the development and implementation of quality interprofessional education (IPE). The CAA is pleased to have been a part of the development of this resource for institutional leaders, programs and faculty, and accreditation agencies and volunteers.

The guidance document is intended to foster increased communication and collaboration between educators in various professions and to provide guidance on achieving quality IPE. The document

• offers consensus terminology and definitions for IPE and related concepts;
• encourages institutional leaders to develop a systematic approach to foster IPE in their own institutions and, where appropriate, collaborate with academic institutions, health systems, and community partners;
• suggests a framework for leaders and faculty to develop a plan for quality IPE; and
• provides opportunities for HPAC member accreditation boards/commissions to use the guidance to assess their IPE standards and to train site teams regarding the essential elements of high-quality IPE.

The CAA views this document as a resource to support programs in their preparation of graduate students in audiology and in speech-language pathology as professionals, regardless of clinical externship or practice settings. It is not intended to replace or subsume CAA’s accreditation standards related to IPE, nor will site visitors be directed to consider programs’ IPE plans solely on the basis of recommendations from this document.

The CAA expects programs to be engaged in IPE ultimately to realize the success of their graduates in interprofessional collaborative practice (IPP). For a program, the advantage of using a multidisciplinary, collaborative guidance document as a basis for its own implementation and practice of IPE is that it can facilitate an organized and systematic approach that is consistent with the goals, objectives, and procedures used by other health professions in the training of their students. Such consistency of terminology, focus, process, and assessment across the health professions will help facilitate students’ use of IPP beyond their training and is, itself, a working example of IPP.

 

Related Resources

• Ask the CAA: Should our program include IPE/IPP in our academic and clinical curriculum?
• CAA Standards for Accreditation [PDF]—Standards 3.1 A, 3.4A, 3.1B

What are recommended strategies to collect employment data from graduates?

The CAA requires accredited programs to annually report student achievement data in three areas—program completion, Praxis examination performance, and employment of graduates in the professions. The CAA uses these data to support assessment of a program’s effectiveness.

For reporting employment data, programs should include graduates who are employed in the profession or who are pursuing further education in the profession within 1 year of graduation. The CAA expects programs to report employment data on ALL graduates from the prior year, as stated in Standard 1.9, as well as to meet the CAA-established threshold for this student outcome measure in Standard 5.7.

Programs should make every effort to use all possible mechanisms to collect this data, including but NOT limited to the following:

• Alumni surveys
• Exit interviews
• Use of program director sign-off on certification applications, state licensure forms, or other national credentials to include the opportunity to query for employment status or future education
• Research of graduates’ records in the ASHA certification/membership database
• Research through state licensure boards to identify employment of graduates
• Other creative means or incentives by which to collect this data on program graduates

If your program uses an innovative technique or successful mechanism to collect employment data on graduates, and if you are willing to share it, please contact accreditation@asha.org.

See the CAA Resources page for more information.

The CAA has identified program completion rates as an outcome measure that addresses the quality of the program’s success with respect to student achievement. Further, the CAA believes that program completion rates reflect multiple facets of program effectiveness. When students complete a program within the program’s specified time frame, it suggests that the program’s admissions process was effective, that required course work was offered on a sufficiently regular basis, and that the program provided sufficient clinical education opportunities.

Please note: As of March 1, 2018, the CAA is applying an updated formula for calculating program completion rates for its decisions on accreditation reports. The changes also are reflected in the worksheet for programs when reporting these student outcome data to the CAA. 

Completion Time Frames – Program Tracks

The CAA allows for programs to establish separate time frames for students to complete the program for those enrolled in different tracks, including full-time, part-time, or when the program is offered via different modalities.

A student should be counted as completing “on time” if the student graduates within the published time frame for the appropriate component of the program.

Terms of Student Enrollment

The CAA interprets the published time frame as the number of terms an individual student was actually enrolled in the program. The terms do not have to be consecutive, but the total number of terms must meet the program’s expected time frame for completion. University-approved leaves of absences (e.g., for reasons of health, maternity/paternity, mission work, military assignment) do not count toward the number of terms a student was enrolled in the program.

Program Completion Data

The CAA requires programs to report on the completion status of all students in the accredited or candidate program. The numbers of students who complete the program on time, students who complete the program later than expected, and students who do not complete the program for academic and clinical progress or reasons having to do with program quality factor into the formula the CAA has developed to determine a program’s on-time completion rate.

Students taking longer or who have left the program for reasons related to academic or clinical progress (e.g., insufficient course offerings, remediation, academic integrity, dismissal) cannot be considered as meeting on-time completion expectations.

Students taking longer or who have left the program for reasons unrelated to program quality (e.g., personal, financial, relocation) or for reasons unrelated to the program, faculty and staff, or academic or clinical curriculum will not count toward the 3-year average program completion rate.

The CAA has developed a worksheet to guide programs in providing and calculating discrete data about student completion for the 3-year reporting period.

The CAA revised its interpretation of the elements for calculating program completion rates in July 2017 as a result of recommendations from the CAA’s Working Group on Audiology Program Completion Rates. The Working Group, which was composed of CAA members and CAA-accredited academic program representatives, recommended—and the CAA subsequently approved—that the CAA-established threshold for program completion rates only applies to measures of program quality (e.g., students not completing on time or dropping out for reasons that reflect on the quality of the program) versus personal factors (e.g., financial, relocation, change in life situation) external to the program that do not reflect on the quality of the program. The updated formula, which applies to both audiology and speech-language pathology programs, was implemented March 1, 2018, for CAA’s decisions on accreditation reports. Programs may be asked for additional information related to program completion rates if needed.

Calculating Three-Year Rates

The CAA calculates three-year rates using raw data for the three-year interval reported by a program in its current accreditation report in order to assess compliance with the CAA-established thresholds for program completion, Praxis examination pass rates, and graduate employment rates. This protocol is in accordance with best practices in mathematics and statistical analysis. It is expected that programs use the same practice to calculate the three-year averages for these student achievement measures. Averaging the three annual percentages is not an appropriate method to determine the three-year averages in order to demonstrate the program’s ability to meet the CAA-established benchmarks for the student achievement measures.

The CAA does not require programs to post three-year averages as part of the data that must be presented on the program’s website for student achievement. However, when posted the data must be accurate.

Additional Resources

• Student Achievement Measures
• Presenting Student Achievement Data
• Program Completion Rate Calculator Worksheet