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declining injury rates for cities with certified inspectors than
those without, but only the data for 2010 was significant.
While national playground injury rates have been increasing during the past decade, California's have decreased. Thus,
California's playground safety regulation provided a good
platform to examine certification effectiveness. Overall, results clearly support positive relationships between certification, inspector and supervisor perceptions and the working
model and injury reductions on California playgrounds.
Studies Showed Value in Professional Certification
Curtis found studies that suggested an increasing number
of employers were turning to certifications as a means of
ensuring potential employees actually do have the requisite
skills for an occupational specialty. Just as a degree from an
accredited university provides solid evidence of advanced
learning, professional certification was viewed by an employer as credible evidence of skill and knowledge within a
particular profession.
The state of California took this to the extreme by requiring that all public playgrounds be initially inspected and certified by a CPSI credentialed by NRPA's CPSI Course and
Exam. This was to occur before the playground was opened
to the public, per California law. Interestingly, California is
still the only state with this requirement.
Curtis's research also sought to determine if certification
or non-certification impacted quality-cost improvements
and waste-cost reductions. The statistical results found no
significant differences between those entities with certified
employees and those without. If this finding was universal,
then the conclusions could be significant for all professions.
In explaining the study results, it was concluded that success
for the companies would require more than just people with
certifications.
Interestingly, Curtis found that certification was not always valued. He found many older established employers
in the project management profession had little knowledge
of professional project management certification. While
employers might notice the certification on a résumé, they
weren't necessarily interested in applicants with professional
certifications. This finding was worth mentioning because
this bias could just as easily pertain to those hiring people to
maintain and manage playground safety.
Another bias against professional certification is certification fraud or cheating to provide or obtain a professional
credential. Employers can no longer assume that potential
employee certifications are genuine, casting further doubt on
the value of certification. When employers no longer value
certification as a hiring, promotion or compensation criteri10
Parks & Recreation
on, professionals in any field also start to question its value.
Curtis' study gave some credence to there being no empirical, statistically significant distinction between the capabilities of certified and noncertified professionals. This conclusion was counter to the hypotheses of the study, which
predicted statistically significant differences between the
capabilities of certified and noncertified playground safety
inspectors.
By far, the highest concentration of research found on
the effects of certification was in the field of education and
teacher certification. Common sense suggests that the quality of teachers would impact student achievement and that a
certified teacher would promote greater impact than a noncertified one. However, review of the literature suggested accurately measuring teacher quality was challenging and not
as clear cut as might be assumed. A study examining the underlying assumption that teachers were important predictors
of student achievement concluded that teacher experience,
education and certification were not strongly correlated with
student achievement. This study did find some evidence that
supported teacher experience as positively associated with
students' mathematics and reading outcomes. The author of
the study also cautioned that the lack of significant effects
should not be interpreted as evidence that teachers produced
no impact on student achievement.
Curtis observed a comment in the report that policies rewarding teachers based on credentials may be less effective
than policies rewarding teachers based on performance. His
observation could be related to employers possibly rewarding playground safety inspectors (e.g., pay raises, promotions
or special recognition) because they achieved certification
rather than actually being able to show a reduction in children's playground injuries as a result of their certification.
In a 2007 study, researchers compared the effectiveness
of certified and noncertified teachers (i.e., National Board
for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification)
based on the following questions that may be relevant to
playground safety inspector certification:
* Is certification a good indicator of teacher quality in the
teacher labor market as a whole?
* Did certification provide any information about teacher
effectiveness that goes beyond what was already provided
by licensure exams (i.e., Are licensure tests just as good as
certification at identifying effective teachers)?
* Did these certification standards identify the most effective teacher candidates?
* Is the certification process itself a facilitator for building
human capital?
These researchers found that the NBPTS assessment pro-
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Playground Guide - 2016
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Playground Guide - 2016
Playground Guide - 2016 - 1
Playground Guide - 2016 - 2
Playground Guide - 2016 - 3
Playground Guide - 2016 - 4
Playground Guide - 2016 - 5
Playground Guide - 2016 - 6
Playground Guide - 2016 - 7
Playground Guide - 2016 - 8
Playground Guide - 2016 - 9
Playground Guide - 2016 - 10
Playground Guide - 2016 - 11
Playground Guide - 2016 - 12
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