The Alliance for Massage Therapy Education recently conducted a national survey to gather information from the educational community on the attitudes or perceptions regarding: 1) formation of standards for teacher education, massage school curricula, and continuing education; and 2) the Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge.
This survey was developed by the Alliance’s Professional Standards Committee, which made the survey available to massage school directors and administrators, teachers and continuing education providers through a variety of media channels. There were a total of 312 respondents from these constituent groups, and there were clear trends that emerged in response to a number of the survey questions:
- 82.0% agreed that national standards need to be established for massage/bodywork curricula in entry-level programs, versus 7.1% who disagreed.
- 80.4% agreed that competency-based national teacher education standards are needed, versus 6.8% who disagreed.
- 75.3% agreed that there needs to be national standards defined for advanced-level training programs and certification in specialized areas of practice, versus 11.2% who disagreed.
- 53.5% indicated their agreement with the need for a single centralized approval program for continuing education providers and courses, versus 25.6% who did not agree that such a program was needed.
- 53.2% agreed that the Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge needs modification before being adopted as an “official” document to be used by state agencies and national accrediting commissions, versus only 5.2% who disagreed.
This data affirms the strategic direction established by the Alliance, and is congruent with one of the organization’s key goals: to develop standards that guide and inform the effective teaching of massage therapy. Click this link to download and view the complete results of this survey: