Academic and Clinical Content

How does the CAA differentiate between what constitutes academic content and what constitutes clinical content?

The CAA references both academic and clinical content and coursework in its Standards for Accreditation (Standards). How those terms are defined support various aspects of the CAA’s compliance indicators, such as faculty teaching load. The CAA includes a glossary as part of the Standards document [PDF], which defines terms that are presented and applied in the Standards.

The CAA defines academic content as follows:

• Lectures or other pedagogical methods, laboratory experiences, and/or clinically related activities or experiences provided within the context of a credit-earning didactic course or research experience.

Further, the CAA defines clinical education experiences as follows:

• That aspect of the professional curriculum that includes the spectrum of experiential learning and clinical education settings where students practice applying knowledge, skills, and professional behaviors under the direction of a qualified clinical educator.

An example of how this differentiation is applied is addressed in CAA’s Standard 2.3, Faculty Qualifications. This Standard includes a requirement that “the majority of academic content is taught by doctoral faculty who hold the appropriate terminal academic degree (PhD, EdD).” For the purposes of accreditation, a terminal degree is only the PhD or EdD. The AuD, the SLPD, or other clinical doctorates are not considered to be terminal degrees.

To verify that at least 50% of the course credits are taught by someone with a PhD or EdD, only the course credits for the academic content need to be totaled. The credits that would be counted for academic content include those for the didactic courses, labs, and research courses; credits also may include the portion of a clinical course that is didactic.

Programs have the autonomy to design and sequence the academic and clinical content and experiences in the curriculum. As a result, there is variability across programs as well as flexibility in how programs prepare each student for independent professional practice in the context of its mission and goals.