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American College of Sports Medicine<\/p>\nAmerican College of Sports Medicine<\/p>\n
INDIANAPOLIS, IN<\/strong> – In 2017, ACSM Certification completed its regularly scheduled job task analysis (JTA) study and update of the ACSM Certified Personal Trainer (ACSM-CPT) and ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist (ACSM-EP) certification exams. The purpose of JTA updates, typically conducted every five to seven years, is to ensure that assessed knowledge, skill and abilities of exercise professionals reflect current professional standards\/practice and latest health\/fitness research. Moreover, the JTA updates are required to maintain National Commission on Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accreditation.<\/p>\n The ACSM-CPT and ACSM-EP exams had substantive changes to the exam content outlines (see table 1 and 2) and include: (1) removal of business, marketing, and management topics; revised weighting of content domains (see tables 1 and 2); and, (3) inclusion of the new preparticipation screening algorithm.<\/p>\n In an ongoing effort to provide greater transparency, ACSM included levels of cognitive complexity to its exam content outlines (Download ACSM-CPT outline or ACSM-EP outline). Cognitive complexity is a way of describing the extent to which a candidate should know or be able to perform a job task.<\/p>\n Jobs of exercise professionals can range between simple and complicated tasks. Much in the same way, the ACSM exams are written at different levels of cognitive complexity. A low level of cognitive processing requires simple recall of information, whereas a higher level of cognitive processing includes analysis, evaluations and judgments. ACSM uses three levels of cognitive challenge: recall, application and synthesis.<\/p>\n Finally, ACSM implemented the latest psychometric best practices to item development. This includes, but is not limited to, eliminating negatively worded items, complex multiple-choice items, and\/or inclusion of multimedia assets. As a result, exam candidates have reported greater readability and higher fidelity items. \u201cSo, after taking the old exam twice and barely not passing, I took this new version and killed it,\u201d said ACSM Certified Professional Liz White. \u201cACSM did a great job wording the questions on this updated exam compared to the last version. I can\u2019t even express how much better the exam was overall!\u201d<\/p>\n The net result of these efforts is that pass rates have jumped dramatically and are at historically high levels for the ACSM-CPT and ACSM-EP certification exams (See tables 3a and 3b). <\/p>\n Moving forward, ACSM will apply the same rigorous redevelopment standards to the ACSM Certified Group Exercise Instructor (ACSM-GEI) and ACSM Certified Clinical Exercise Physiologist (ACSM-CEP) certification exams.<\/p>\n For more information about how to get and stay certified with ACSM, visit the ACSM Certification Site<\/a> or email ACSM Certification at certification@acsm.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n