Analysis of the Impact of CACREP Accreditation of Counselor Education Programs on Student Knowledge Outcomes

The principal investigator (PI) for this study analyzed mean scores on the National Counselor Examination (NCE) of students from CACREP accredited and non-CACREP accredited programs. Data was provided by the National Board of Certified Counselors, Inc., for a total of ten examination administrations across six years. The fourteen variables examined in the study consisted of the eight common-core knowledge domains identified in CACREP standards, the five counselor work behavior areas identified by NBCC via periodic job analysis of counseling practice, and one overall or total score on the NCE. NCE mean scores of students from CACREP accredited programs were higher than NCE mean scores of students from non-CACREP accredited programs on all variables across all ten NCE administrations. Data seem to indicate that students from CACREP accredited programs perform significantly better on the NCE than students from non-CACREP accredited programs, in all fourteen variables. Sample size was large, totaling 9707, so the PI calculated effect sizes using Cohen’s d for each variable to aid interpretation of statistical significance. Five variables had large effect sizes of .70 or higher. The higher effect size statistics were associated with the counselor work behavior areas, with the highest effect size (.85) associated with the overall, or total, score on the NCE. Statistically significant results in the counselor work behavior areas, in the presence of large effect size statistics, may represent reasonably good support for CACREP accredited programs’ superiority in developing overall counselor clinical skills and knowledge beyond simply content knowledge. Additionally, the large effect size of the Total Score variable might be interpreted to indicate that student knowledge gained from CACREP accredited programs is superior to student knowledge gained from non-CACREP accredited programs.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2001

Author dc:creator

• Scott, Susan W.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Altekruse, Michael K.
• Coy, Doris R.
• Hipple, John
• Holden, Janice Miner
• Keller, M. Jean

• Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs.
• Educational counseling -- Study and teaching (Higher)
• CACREP
• accreditation
• counseling
• program evaluation
• NBCC

Statement dc:rights

• Use restricted to UNT Community
• Copyright
• Scott, Susan W.
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 50647021
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2746/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc2746

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc2746