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2021 UI National Integrity Academy Annual Evaluation Report

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) Integrity Center (Center) is operated by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) and seeks to provide state workforce agencies (SWAs) with resources and information related to UI integrity. One of the Center’s key resources is the National Integrity Academy (NIA), which provides rigorous integrity-related training and certification programs to SWAs. The skill gains of NIA learners resulting from the certificate programs are evaluated annually to determine if the trainings are meeting the skill development needs of SWAs. This report provides the findings associated with the evaluation of the 2021 NIA learner skill gains for the following six certificate programs:

  • UI Operations Integrity (NIA 1)
  • UI Fraud Investigations (NIA 2)
  • UI Program Leadership (NIA 4)
  • UI Tax Auditing (NIA 5A)
  • UI Tax Investigations (NIA 5I)
  • Fact-Finding & Adjudication (NIA FF)

The data utilized to inform these findings rely on two waves of surveys administered to learners who completed an NIA certificate during 2021: one immediately after completing the certificate, and one at the beginning of 2022. Learners were asked to retrospectively self-rate their skills and knowledge both before, and after, taking the training in Wave 1 surveys, in addition to providing feedback on the certificate program. The Wave 2 surveys focused on learners’ perceived improvement in job confidence and performance after completing a certificate. The analyses were conducted via paired Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests, descriptive statistics, and data visualizations.