Show and tell: Blending and expanding credit by exam and competency-based credit in sport management

Prior learning assessment has become a common strategy in higher education whereby institutions recognize and legitimize the meaningful learning that takes place outside of the formal educational setting. While institutional prior learning assessment methods vary, credit by exam is one example of a competency-based program that has grown in popularity due in part to its association with student success benefits. In advancing the conventional credit by exam concept, this article describes the Credit By Exam 2.0 program designed to explore alternative pathways in competency-based education. Different from a traditional College-Level Examination Program Test and credit by exam, the unconventional aspect of this program is its expansion beyond the ‘all or nothing’ approach to earning course credit by using a two-phase process that allows a student to test out of portions of course content that he/she can demonstrate as having already mastered. The novel features of this program and its implications will be discussed.