The Importance of Research in the Credentialing Industry

At its core, the credentialing industry serves individuals who want to validate their knowledge and skills and those who want to learn and develop their knowledge and skills. Research is an important pillar of our industry that underpins all aspects of how we serve certificants and the public. This article is a broad, philosophical reminder of why research in the credentialing industry is important.

Research is the investigation of a subject of interest in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. Research is spurred by curiosity and inquisitiveness. You start by asking a question, collecting data, making inferences, and communicating those findings to others. Research is an iterative process that involves others evaluating your findings and providing feedback. It is important to be humble when asking research questions because you might be wrong, but being wrong is the first step in coming to a better understanding of the world around you.

Research helps us make better decisions. We all naturally want to follow best practices, but how do we determine what those best practices are? Education helps us to know many of the options available to us, but research helps us to determine which options are better under particular circumstances. There are many ways to set a passing standard, but research and industry consensus has led us to agree that the modified-Angoff method is the most widely accepted and defensible. As technology becomes more advanced, so do the methods of cheating for some test takers. Research and continually trying to improve our methods is how we will best prevent cheating, identify cheating behaviors, and protect the integrity of our exams. Research leads to a better understanding, which leads to developing best practices, which allow us to make better decisions.

Research helps us understand our community. Everyone makes assumptions about what is going on in the credentialing community, but research helps us gain understanding and consensus. Research by the Institute of Credentialing Excellence (I.C.E.) has helped us better understand what our colleagues are doing and how credentialing bodies are managing similar challenges. Their research initiatives have helped us to better forecast the future of credentialing, understand the issues facing small credentialing programs, determine the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in our industry, and so much more. Research through surveys and interviews has helped many of us to better understand what is going on in our industry, and therefore, better inform our judgements about how to manage certification programs.

Research is a core value of the credentialing industry. Research is important because it helps us to expand our knowledge and understanding, which has always been the main initiative of credentialing. Whether we are talking about an educational/training certificate or preparing to take a certification exam, advancing our knowledge is always a primary goal. However, an issue arises when valuing research meets the practical obstacle of funding it. Research isn’t cheap or free, so how much we value research must be expressed through each of us either participating in research or monetarily funding research. Obviously not everyone can participate in research equally, but even responding to those industry surveys is helpful. Even donating $5, rather than buying that afternoon cup of Starbuck’s coffee, would be helpful to support research initiatives. I encourage anyone who has benefited from I.C.E.’s research to go to their website and donate (https://www.credentialingexcellence.org/Research/Invest-in-Research).

Research is not just an activity performed by bespectacled scientists, it is a core value that drives the credentialing industry forward. It helps us to make better decisions, understand one another, and makes the world a better place. And just as America runs on Dunkin’, the credentialing industry runs on research.