CQIA Handbook

Updated on 21 September 2026. What’s new: CQIA exam fees corrected to $334 for ASQ members, $434 for non-members and $234 for retakes.

To pass the CQIA you need to answer 110 multiple-choice questions in 198 minutes and reach a scaled score of 550 out of 750. Forty of the 100 scored questions come from a single domain, Improvement, so weight your study time towards it and train yourself to read quality tools at a glance.

That sentence hides a good deal of detail, and the rest of this article unpacks it: what the American Society for Quality asks about in each of the five Body of Knowledge domains, who is allowed to sit the exam, what it costs, how to build a study plan around the question weights, and what separates candidates who finish comfortably from those who run out of time.

The ASQ Certified Quality Improvement Associate is a foundation-level credential in ASQ's Foundation Quality category. It does not assume you lead a Six Sigma programme or audit suppliers for a living. It assumes you work somewhere quality matters, whether that is manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, financial services or software, and that you want independent proof you understand the vocabulary, the tools and the team behaviours that improvement work depends on.

As a Certified Quality Improvement Associate (CQIA) you will have the first awareness of quality tools and their uses and be included in quality improvement projects, but will not necessarily come from a traditional quality area. Those new to quality, process leader practitioners, and those who support the practice of business excellence would benefit from formal recognition of proficiency on the fundamentals of quality and process improvement.

What Are the Gist Competencies of a CQIA?

• Explain the key events in the development of quality.