“Continuous certification” has become a buzz-phrase floating around the assessment world. It’s shaking up traditional models, shifting them from infrequent, high-stakes assessments to frequent, lower-stakes assessments. But how do you know if the shift is right for your program? Here are five reasons a continuous certification model may be worth exploring.

1. Your candidates want a change in testing frequency and flexibility.

A continuous certification model enhances your engagement with candidates. You can deliver more often and with more options for testing times and locations. A candidate might answer one question sent to their email each day; another might receive a few questions each quarter. In all scenarios, the content is never far from their minds. Candidates benefit from increased exposure to content and from the convenience of testing where and when works best for them.

2. Your candidates want to stay current in their industries.

Industries evolve quickly. With a continuous certification model, you can update content to reflect recent industry research. As new resources and findings become available, you can incorporate them as supplemental learning materials (see #4) within the assessment without impacting delivery. In nearly real-time, candidates test on these latest developments and, as a result, stay up-to-date in their respective industries.

3. Your candidates want a personalized testing experience.

Candidates want to focus on the areas that they’re weak in. Continuous certification models create that customizable experience. You can apply adaptive item delivery, which offers candidates instant feedback on their progress and redelivers items they need to spend more time on. You can also configure your system to allow candidates to choose a content direction. Sometimes having a way for them to pick their own area is key!

4. Your candidates want an easy way to learn content.

You can add supplemental learning materials, such as journal articles or links to websites, to your continuous learning assessment. Candidates can review these materials within the assessment platform itself, allowing them to immediately reinforce and contextualize content. You can choose to incorporate the materials where they’ll work best for your program: before, during, or after an assessment. With more options to learn, candidates will engage even more.

5. Your candidates want an easy way to practice content.

Your candidates are ready to say farewell to their bulky practice workbooks. Using a continuous certification model, you can deliver practice questions in addition to test questions. And because you can manage everything in a single location, you can simply share your retired content to a new mode of delivery. Candidates conveniently work on their skills—they could run through a few practice questions on their phones while waiting in line for coffee, or they could take a full practice test when they have time.

If you found yourself nodding as you read one or more of these indicators, continuous certification might be right for your program. But we know that a full-scale switch to a new model can be a lot of change all at once. You may want to dabble in some continuous certification options while primarily using your current model. To continue the conversation about continuous certification models, reach out to us at info@testsys.com.