Streamlining accreditation: a cross-disciplinary analysis.

Abstract

Purpose: This study seeks to understand how accreditation of professional education programs achieves its positive impacts on the quality of education. It examines accreditation standards and processes across seven professional education disciplines (business administration, computer sciences, engineering, nursing, pharmacy, dental education, and medical education). The underlying theoretical assumption proposes that similar accreditation components drive similar endpoints, i.e. that commonalities in standards and processes across disciplines represent the core of accreditation and drive its impacts on education quality, since each accreditation organization independently considers them as important components of its accreditation practices. Accreditation carries significant costs (human, financial, lost opportunities) for programs. Understanding which components most contribute to its positive impacts will inform reforms of accreditation systems, improve cost-effectiveness and decrease accreditation burden on programs without sacrificing education quality METHOD: Thematic analyses of accreditation standards and processes were performed across seven professional education domains.

Results: Common themes of standards across organizations related to 'Student', 'Curriculum', 'Program Resources', and 'Program Management', although their granularity varied widely between organizations. Two themes of standards were not shared ('Institution', 'Learning Environment'), suggesting that these themes were not universally seen as essential, thus offering opportunities for revisions and simplification of standards in remaining organizations. Accreditation processes were similar across organizations, but their intensity varied, impacting programs' workload and resources in preparing for accreditation CONCLUSIONS: The identification of core accreditation standards and processes, and of several areas where efficiencies can be achieved, provides practical avenues to reform accreditation systems to improve cost-effectiveness and decrease accreditation burden without sacrificing education quality.