School Services » Common Professional Component (CPC)

Business schools obtaining and/or sustaining AACSB, ACBSP, and /IACBE accreditation must demonstrate student competency associated with either 11 or 12 CPC topical areas depending upon the specific accreditation program with at least two direct measures and two indirect measures. Most programs have at least one direct measure. The challenge is how to demonstrate a second, independent, direct measure.

In response to these requirements, we have developed on-line testing tools and associated instructional textbooks that will help higher learning institutions address these accreditation requirements.

Our on-line program is designed to complement your university academic instruction with on-line tools and to assist you towards addressing your accreditation requirements.

For CPC testing, we offer two essential services, both of which can be customized for your particular academic program:

1. Common Professional Component (CPC) comprehensive exams for direct assessment and benchmarking students with pre/post program completion and within their program as a specific requirement.
   The comprehensive exam covers all 12 CPC topical areas. Exam versions are based on the academic level of the student (bachelors, masters, and doctoral). The comprehensive exam works well as an in/out direct measure assessment for your academic program as required for accreditation. We can change our comprehensive exams to meet your specific direct measurement requirements. You select the topics and we will provide you with the test you need.
2. CPC course programs using custom published e-books and on-line pre and post tests for direct assessment and course benchmarking.
   Our CPC courses are based on academic level (bachelors, masters, and doctoral). The courses include paired pre-tests and post-tests for academic benchmarking. Custom published e-books are available through your university bookstore system or from us direct via the publishing companies.

Our CPC program (bachelors, masters, and doctoral) fulfills a variety of needs for higher learning institutions.

• These CPC courses can serve as a bridge between a non-business undergraduate program and a graduate business program.
• The CPC courses also serves as a refresher course for students who have not been in business program for several years.
• The CPC courses can also be used as an assessment course to ensure that students are fully competent in core professional component topical areas associated with a business degree.

International versions are also available in English, French, Spanish, and German.

Most importantly, our CPC courses assists higher learning institutions with obtaining and/or maintaining their Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) and International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE) accreditation requirements for post-baccalaureate/pre-graduate program assessment for students entering distance-learning graduate programs in business-related programs.

Our CPC course helps fulfill ACBSP and IACBE accreditation requirements through the demonstrated student competency within the CPC topical areas. Higher learning programs must regularly demonstrate through direct measures that their business curriculum and their higher learning program in business meets uniformed standards.

As defined by the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) and the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), the Common Professional Component (CPC) includes the following 12 business topical areas:

1. Marketing
2. Business Finance
3. Accounting
4. Management
5. Legal Environment of Business
6. Economics
7. Business Ethics
8. Global Dimensions of Business
9. Information Management Systems
10. Quantitative Techniques/Statistics
11. Business Leadership (Required only by IACBE)
12. Business Integration and Strategic Management

Each of the three CPC courses (Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral) is divided into three units (X0001, X0002, and X0003). Each unit covers four CPC topical areas and the material is unique and based on the appropriate academic level.

Each CPC unit has a pre-test and a post-test. The purpose of the pretest is to establish a baseline competency level. The purpose of the post-test is to assess CPC competency. The pre-test is used to measure the competency baseline of the learner and then their post-test is used to evaluate learning. The pre and post test measuring is consistent with the Malcolm Baldridge philosophy of continuous and measurable improvements.

Each pre/post test includes 40 questions randomly selected from a test bank that includes over 500 questions for the particular unit. Test questions are taken directly from the custom-published textbooks provided for the course. There are 10 questions for each of the four CPC topical areas included within the CPC unit.

After the post-test has been taken, both the pre-test and post-test scores can be provided to the learner. The pretest is not provided sooner to prevent discouraging the learner. Feedback includes total score and a score for each of the four topical areas included within the test.

Your university course mentors check results using a mentor password and review each student's test. Your university course mentors evaluate homework assignments and issue grades for the course according to your program. Course mentors are part of your university faculty and have no affiliation with Peregrine Academic Services, LLC.

Your university program administrator can review their entire program on-line using an administrator exam key.

We also offer on-line CPC comprehensive exams based upon academic level (bachelors, masters, and doctoral). We can also build custom comprehensive exams that only assess competency for specific CPC topical areas for associates in business programs or for specific CPC courses

The comprehensive exam includes 120 questions randomly selected questions, 10 questions each from the 12 CPC topical areas.

The comprehensive exam can be used:

• As an end-of-program/pre-graduation competency exam for direct measurement of academic competency.
• As a pre-program competency exam for masters and doctoral students that can be used to provide an academic benchmark to compare with an end of program assessment.
• A course specific (CPC Topic) competency exam

We can readily customize our entire line of CPC services to best meet your higher learning requirements. As presently offered, the 12-CPC topics are addressed in three units. We can, however, re-divide these courses to better meet your educational needs. We can even expand the content towards creating a full business curriculum, if desired in order to address all of the CPC topical areas.

Ultimately, you control the course content and student assignment requirements. Our programs are designed to augment, not replace, your course instruction. We will work with you to best shape our on-line solutions to address your needs. Your faculty monitors the student progress and records grades.

Presently, we offer three essential services:

1. Common Professional Component (CPC) comprehensive exams for direct assessment and benchmarking students before/after their business courses or within the program for assessment on specific topics.
2. CPC course programs using custom published e-books and on-line pre and post tests for direct assessment and course benchmarking.
3. APA writing style training and testing to enhance student and professor APA competency and writing effectiveness.

If you have other needs for on-line testing, training, or evaluation of higher learning, please let us know.

We would like to be your on-line partner within these areas so that you can focus on your core competency, which is providing accredited degree programs for students.