Certification Exam Changes

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Jul 11, 2018 - Brought to you by the American College of Sports Medicine www.acsm.org. Volume 22 | Number 4 www.acsm-healthfitness.org. 27. Copyright ...
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Certification Exam Changes What Do You Need to Know? by Yuri Feito, Ph.D., M.P.H., FACSM INTRODUCTION s many of you probably already know, all ACSM certifications have undergone major changes over the last year or so. Some changes are because of the release of the 10th edition of ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, and some changes are more specifically related to updating the exam content. To this end, I was able to “catch up” with ACSM’s National Director of Certification, Francis Neric, and gather some insight regarding what changes should be expected by those seeking certification.

A

1. What exams have changed? In short, all ACSM health fitness and clinical exams will have substantive changes in 2018 and 2019. ACSM launched new versions of the Certified Personal Trainer (ACSMCPT ®) and Certified Exercise Physiologist (ACSM-EP ®) on December 18, 2017. A revised version of the Certified Group Exercise Instructor Exam (ACSM-GEI ®) will launch in late 2018. In addition, ACSM’s Committee on Certification and Registry Boards (CCRB) completed its multiyear investigation into the clinical exercise physiologist profession in 2017. A major conclusion is that employers, certificants, exam candidates, and university programs have difficulty differentiating between clinical exercise physiologist and registered clinical exercise physiologist job roles. As a result, ACSM will develop and maintain a single clinical certification to substantially improve the clarity of the clinical exercise profession. ACSM anticipates launching the new ACSM-CEP ® exam in December 2018. 2. How are the examinations different? Major changes to the exams include the revision of how questions are weighted and removal of certain topics; see Tables 1A & 1B. Specific knowledge and skills can be found in the respective exam content outlines for ACSMCPT ® — http://bit.ly/2sbMqkn, and ACSM-EP ® — http://bit.ly/ 2FQhwQJ. Also, the exam content outlines now include cognitive levels at each job task. 3. What are the main topics/areas where the changes have been made? Major content changes to the ACSM-CPT ® and ACSM-GEI ® include the inclusion of the updated preparticipation screening process (i.e., ACSM preparticipation screening algorithm, PAR-Q+) and removal of the business, marketing, and management domains. Specific changes to the 2012 and 2017 job task analyses can be found on the ACSM-CPT ® Volume 22 | Number 4

and ACSM-EP ® crosswalk documents; ACSM-CPT ® — http://bit.ly/ 2nEvRJi; ACSM-EP ® — http://bit.ly/2E3br70. An example of the crosswalk can be found in Table 2. 4. How should test takers prepare for the new exams? Candidates typically take 6 to 9 months to prepare for an exam, but this depends on their current time commitments (e.g., full-time employment, fulltime student). Regardless of exam, candidates are recommended to start with the content outline. The exam content outline provides an excellent overview of the breadth and depth of the content covered on the exam. Performance domains are broken out by percentages. Candidates may want to spend time in areas that have larger percentages of the exam dedicated to them. In addition, when a job task has greater cognitive complexity, a candidate should have a greater command of the content area (e.g., detail of processes, interconnection of systems). Another consideration is that candidates should rank each content domain or job task by their own relative strength or weakness in the area and then allocate their study time accordingly. Next, candidates should become familiar with ACSM Position Stands, whitepapers, industry standards, and best practices. Wonderful resources to find this information include the Resources for the Personal Trainer or Resources for the Exercise Physiologist textbooks and the ACSM Web site (www.acsm.org). A major mistake some candidates make is reading a book for detail straight away and getting lost in the minutia. Candidates who are the most successful understand the big picture first, how concepts fit together, and then drill down to specific details (e.g., processes, calculations, percentiles). For example, candidates may want to consider beginning with the learning objectives and summary first. Make note of all the call-outs within each section that underscore critical topics or themes. And then read the chapter for specific details that identify how to perform a process, calculations, and so on.

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ACSM CERTIFICATION TABLE 1A:

TABLE 2:

Comparison of the 2012 and 2017 ACSM-CPT ® Performance Domains

Crosswalk Comparison of 2012 and 2017 ACSM-EP ® Job Tasks

Performance Domains (2012)

Domain I: Health and Fitness Assessment

Performance Domains (2017)

Domain I: initial client consultation and assessment

26%

Domain I: initial client consultation and assessment

25%

Domain II: exercise programming and implementation

27%

Domain II: exercise programming and implementation

45%

Domain III: exercise leadership and client education

27%

Domain III: exercise leadership and client education

20%

Domain IV: legal, professional, business, and marketing

20%

Domain IV: legal, professional, business, and marketing

10%

Finally, candidates can assess their mastery by reviewing a bank of questions. Wolters Kluwer offers prepU, which is an adaptive question bank (https://certification.acsm.org/prepu). Questions become increasingly difficult as questions are answered correctly. It should be noted that the questions in prepU may not be substantially similar (look or format) to the questions exhibited on ACSM exams. 5. How were the new exams developed? The CCRB regularly performs job task analyses (JTAs) of its exams every 5 to 7 years. The JTAs are a detailed job survey of currently practicing professionals; i.e., what you are expected to know and be able to perform as part of a job. In addition, the JTA identifies any important changes that have happened to the field since the last JTA. CCRB completed its JTAs for ACSM-CPT ® and ACSM-EP ® exams in April 2017. Generally speaking, the number of exam questions dedicated to the various content areas have changed, and certain topics have been

TABLE 1B: Comparison of the 2012 and 2017 ACSM-EP ® Performance Domains Performance Domains (2012)

Performance Domains (2017)

Domain I: health and fitness assessment

30%

Domain I: health and fitness assessment

35%

Domain II: exercise prescription, implementation (and ongoing support)

30%

Domain II: exercise prescription, implementation

35%

Domain III: exercise counseling and behavioral strategies

15%

Domain III: exercise counseling and behavior modification

25%

Domain IV: legal/professional

10%

Domain IV: risk management and professional responsibilities

5%

Domain V: management

15%





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Domain I: Initial Client Consultation and Assessment

A.

Implement assessment protocols and preparticipation health screening procedures to maximize client safety and minimize risk.

A.

Administer and interpret preparticipation health screening procedures to maximize client safety and minimize risk.

B.

Determine client’s readiness to take part in a health-related physical fitness assessment and exercise program.

B.

Determine client’s readiness to participate in a health-related physical fitness assessment and exercise program.

C.

Select and prepare physical fitness assessments for healthy clients and those with controlled disease.

C.

Determine and administer physical fitness assessment for apparently healthy clients and those with controlled disease.

D.

Conduct and interpret cardiorespiratory fitness assessments.

D.

Conduct and interpret cardiorespiratory fitness assessments.

E.

Conduct assessments of muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility.

E.

Conduct and interpret assessments of muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility.

F.

Conduct anthropometric and body composition assessments.

F.

Conduct and interpret anthropometric and body composition assessments.

removed. As a result, beta versions of the ACSM-CPT ® and ACSM-EP ® exams launched December 18, 2017. ACSM used results of the beta exams and equating standards (how different exam versions are mathematically adjusted to be equal over time) to determine the passing point (who passes the exam). I would like to thank Francis for his time addressing these questions as well as the number of individuals who, as volunteers, have donated their time to redesign these certifications and the corresponding exams. It is my hope these questions provide some clarity for you, the reader, or anyone else who may be contemplating obtaining a certification moving forward. As always, I hope you enjoy the column, and if you have questions you would like me to address, do not hesitate to contact me via Twitter (@DrFeito), or via LinkedIn. Yuri Feito, Ph.D., MPH, FACSM, is an associate professor of Exercise Science at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA. As a professor, Dr. Feito’s emphasis is to provide a “bridge” between scientific knowledge and skill application. He holds the ACSM-RCEP ® and ACSM-CEP ® credentials, and before his academic appointment, he was involved in the medical fitness industry as a practitioner and administrator.

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July/August 2018