How often does incoherent proctoring via OnVue occur?

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Tess Sluijter

Tess Sluijter

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Apr 1, 2020
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#1
G'day all.

I've been hearing reports of incoherent and unpredictable proctoring by OnVue employees for a few years now. Never to such a degree that I thought it was happening in huge amounts of cases, but one could reason that anything over 0.5% of the exams is already egregious.

The latest thread on Reddit is getting raucous responses ->

Proctors are often perceived as overly strict, focusing on making students "fail", giving students contradicting instructions of even (intentionally) giving instructions that would normally break rules.

This matter is something that has a lot of students worried for their exams and they actively blame CompTIA for it, all the more so because CompTIA and PearsonVue will point fingers at each other when the affected student tries to dispute the aborted exam.

I'd love to hear from CompTIA how they handle quality control with PearsonVue.
 
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#2
I have to admit, by a lot of the responses in that thread it also seems / feels like a lot of the test takers just literally don't read or understand the exam rules and requirements. So that will also be a factor in a certain percentage of these cases.

"I got warned for pushing away my cat"... well yeah!
"I got warned for stretching my neck and looking up for a while"... well yeah!
"I got warned for taking a drink"... well yeah!

What I'm trying to figure out here is how credible the reports of contradicting instructions are and how credible some of the student reports are ("I got warned for coughing / sneezing / scratching my nose / looking at the bottom-right of my screen").

Because however you go about it, these stories are affecting CompTIA's credibility as a testing company.
 
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#3
Every exam I've taken with Pearson OnVUE involved the proctor threatening me at least 5 times during the exam in a very harsh manner.

Sometimes it's been because they saw my lips move (I sometimes silently read questions to myself unconsciously), but most of the time it's because I've moved my face closer to the screen to read a diagram.

Each time I just apologize and continue (I'm Canadian after all), but to be honest, it totally destroyed the exam experience for me. And while I love the ability to take exams remotely, I'll be scheduling them in a regular physical testing center as soon as the one near my campus opens again.
 
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#4
Every exam I've taken with Pearson OnVUE involved the proctor threatening me at least 5 times during the exam in a very harsh manner.
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I have been trying to find out the commonalities in all these cases. So far, I've only heard of US-based test takers running into these problems, leading me to wonder if all the affected people might be taking their tests during the US late-morning / afternoon. Those people would be proctored by evening and night-shift workers in India, which might affect quality a bit.

Aside from that hunch, nothing conclusive yet.

but to be honest, it totally destroyed the exam experience for me.
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@Liz Wannemacher , do CompTIA offer students a way to offer honest feedback on their exam experiences outside of the OnVue environment itself? Stuff like this has a damning effect on CompTIA's reputation, I'd say.
 
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#11
Going in, you are nervous enough, but when I took the exam at home on my large monitor, I moved my head to read the question on the left side and got a warning. I laughed it off and continued, just because it threw me off, but I get the proctors are there to ensure no one is cheating. The testing centers have their own set of issues too, but you have to pick what makes sense to you with the better testing experience, but no situation will ever be perfect.
 
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#12
Tess Sluijter said:
G'day all.

I've been hearing reports of incoherent and unpredictable proctoring by OnVue employees for a few years now. Never to such a degree that I thought it was happening in huge amounts of cases, but one could reason that anything over 0.5% of the exams is already egregious.

The latest thread on Reddit is getting raucous responses ->

Proctors are often perceived as overly strict, focusing on making students "fail", giving students contradicting instructions of even (intentionally) giving instructions that would normally break rules.

This matter is something that has a lot of students worried for their exams and they actively blame CompTIA for it, all the more so because CompTIA and PearsonVue will point fingers at each other when the affected student tries to dispute the aborted exam.

I'd love to hear from CompTIA how they handle quality control with PearsonVue.
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Hello Tess, When OnVUE issues are escalated to us, we work with Pearson VUE to get more details, which sometimes even leads us to contact PearsonVUE with a request to review the video of the exam delivery. Issues are handled on a case-by-case basis, and any general response would be for candidates to carefully and thoroughly review all the policies and behaviors considered to be misconduct (https://home.pearsonvue.com/comptia/onvue). There are certainly instances where the candidate's behavior may seem/be innocent, but the online proctors must abide by strict adherence to objective standards for exam security purposes.

Our customer success team says the most common infraction tends to be the candidate moving out of the webcam view, which is automatically flagged as misconduct--despite "innocent" reasons like getting a drink of water. If you should happen to have any issues, we are always happy to investigate.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! Let us know if we can help.

Best,
Liz
 
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#13
I appreciate your feedback, Liz. Thank you for weighing in with CompTIA's standpoint.

When OnVUE issues are escalated to us, we work with Pearson VUE to get more details, which sometimes even leads us to contact PearsonVUE with a request to review the video of the exam delivery.
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For students and test-takers, where can they find the one singular source of truth for the dispute process? The way I understand these threads on Reddit, students are often given the run-around with PearsonVue and CompTIA pointing at each other. Where can we find the official documentation on the dispute process?

Would that be this page? -> https://www.comptia.org/testing/testing-policies-procedures/test-policies
 
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#14
My first couple of online exams were fine, other than having trouble getting a "sufficiently" clear photo of my ID for one of them. But during the last two online exams, I got in trouble halfway through one exam because I guess a replacement proctor took over and didn't like the angle of my camera (even though the person who signed me in said it was fine), and I had to use some of my exam time untaping my camera bracket, repositioning it, and trying to retape it with the old tape. Then in the other exam, there was a loud truck driving by outside my window and I glanced up (as in, a reflexive 2-second glance, not staring at the window), and got in trouble for that. Then I was barely moving my lips at one point as I read the question to myself, and got in trouble again. It's just gotten so restrictive that I feel I can't focus on doing my best for the exam. I've gone back to taking them in person.
 
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#15
Tess Sluijter said:
G'day all.

I've been hearing reports of incoherent and unpredictable proctoring by OnVue employees for a few years now. Never to such a degree that I thought it was happening in huge amounts of cases, but one could reason that anything over 0.5% of the exams is already egregious.

The latest thread on Reddit is getting raucous responses ->

Proctors are often perceived as overly strict, focusing on making students "fail", giving students contradicting instructions of even (intentionally) giving instructions that would normally break rules.

This matter is something that has a lot of students worried for their exams and they actively blame CompTIA for it, all the more so because CompTIA and PearsonVue will point fingers at each other when the affected student tries to dispute the aborted exam.

I'd love to hear from CompTIA how they handle quality control with PearsonVue.
Click to expand...

I have taken 3 exams via OnVue and have been quite satisfied. Once I got my home environment set up properly, everything goes as it does in a testing center.
 
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#16
Thank you Tess for this post, and everyone else for sharing their experiences. Preparing our students to sit for the A+ exams is challenging enough with the natural test anxiety they usually feel. We actually do some "mock" proctoring with practice exams, but now I'm thinking we may have to be more strict when we pop into their Zoom rooms to monitor (without making them panic about it).
I've only taken exams at test centers, which is what I recommend for students generally (who wants to worry that the cat or a random truck passing by will invalidate their test?), but it's not always a viable option for those who live in remote areas or have transportation issues.
 
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#17
David LaRocco said:
Thank you Tess for this post, and everyone else for sharing their experiences. Preparing our students to sit for the A+ exams is challenging enough with the natural test anxiety they usually feel. We actually do some "mock" proctoring with practice exams, but now I'm thinking we may have to be more strict when we pop into their Zoom rooms to monitor (without making them panic about it).
I've only taken exams at test centers, which is what I recommend for students generally (who wants to worry that the cat or a random truck passing by will invalidate their test?), but it's not always a viable option for those who live in remote areas or have transportation issues.
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I think online testing is still reasonably do-able, even with the complications being discussed here. It would just be helpful for test-takers to know what all these unpredictable rules are before testing. Like, I knew I couldn't sit there staring out the window during the test, but a quick glance? I had no idea that would be a problem (despite having read the fine print beforehand). Later in the test, there was another loud noise outside and I quickly glanced up just because it's an automatic response. I caught myself pretty quickly and looked back at my screen--they didn't say anything, so I'm guessing no one was actually looking at me for that split second. But it was really tough to have to think about battling that very natural habit in the middle of a challenging exam, esp. since I didn't know ahead of time it would be an issue. Plus, the chat with the proctor was extremely laggy, so it ate up precious minutes (not just seconds) to try to interact with them and explain what happened.

I think this thread is actually a really good source for tips to give our students of what to expect during an online exam. I hope others will pipe in with their experiences, not to criticize so much, but to give us all more accurate expectations of what to expect and what's expected of us, you know?
 
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#18
Well, this morning I've finally had my first PearsonVue mishap.

I was taking the CySA+ beta and was informed by the proctor that they'd lost my video feed. They informed me they'd restart my exam session, which occurred very swiftly, but without success. After waiting a few minutes, the OnVue client still said "position in queue = calculating", after which it shutdown with the "something went wrong message".

It took me a while to find the right way to contact PearsonVue, their site didn't make it immediately clear how I could open a new chat with support. After chatting with "Stella" a new support case was registered and they will investigate whether I will be given a retry.

It's been interesting to experience this situation! I feel that >95% of CompTIA students would have experienced an incredibly amount of stress in this particular situation, with the possibility of losing their exam fee or more (if jobs were riding on the exam).

For me, it was also very good to learn that the problem, the root cause, actually wasn't with PearsonVue. It appears that my home network was experiencing instability, which I had failed to notice before starting the exam. It sucks that someone's exam can be cut short, because an AP has turned unstable... but to be fair, that is exactly what the contract for OnVue warns you about. So, if PV decide not to give me a retry, that's perfectly fair.
 
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#19
After a bad Pearson Vue home test, I now have a policy of going to an exam center for every test and I recommend so for all of my students. For me, the problem was on the Pearson Vue side and I tried rescheduling my exam 5 times over two days and it never worked. And yes, there was a lot of stress involved because I was leaving on vacation the following day.

In the end, I found a Pearson Vue testing center while I was on vacation and had to take the test then. It was a mess
 
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