Do You Report Cheating?

[David Staples]

Hey everyone, happy Tuesday! So I was teaching a DataSys+ class last week and there are some security topics in the course. This being a military group, I knew that they had most likely done a Security+ at some point and mentioned that they should have seen some of these topics on their Security+ exam. One of the students relayed to me that he thought the exam was so much easier now than it was years ago when he first took it. I asked when he took it and he said just a few months ago. I asked more about his experience on the exam and he said that these days all you have to do is memorize the questions in the test bank because they're practically the same questions as on the exam. I asked more about the test bank he (and another student who was in his same Sec+ class) used and he went on to describe the VCE Player that is commonly used with braindumps. He also said that when he had a difficult question on the exam, he simply raised his hand and the instructor would sit there and go through the question with him. The instructor was not only proctoring the exam, but also helping students out during the exam.

After the class was over, I talked to the owner of another training company that I knew does business with this group and he said he had already reported it to CompTIA, but CompTIA seems to be saying they can't do anything without any sort of hard evidence and apparently isn't going to do anything about it. So my question is, should I even bother reporting this to CompTIA if they're not going to do anything anyways? All I have is what students told me about their experience. No physical, hard, concrete evidence. Does CompTIA actually care about cheating, or so long as a training company brings them a lot of business they don't really care about how they get the students to pass the exam? What would you do?

 

[BrianFord]

David,

Cheating hurts everyone. It lessens the market value of CompTIA and the certifications it offers. It lessens the value of all certification programs. It promotes poor instruction and hurts all of us CINers. But most importantly it hurts everyone who holds or is working to earn a certification.

If a so-called student is brazen enough to admit this to you (another instructor trying to help them learn) you should report their name and the name of the training or testing organization.

Steps to Report Cheating:

1. Visit the Pearson VUE Test Security Page:
Go to www.pearsonvue.com and navigate to the "Contact test security" or "Test Security" section.

2. Complete the Test Security Form:
Find and fill out the designated secure form to report suspected violations.

3. Provide Detailed Information:
Include specifics about the observed violation, including the candidate's information, the alleged inappropriate behavior, the date and time, and any evidence you have.

4. Submit the Form:
Submit the completed form to the Test Security group.

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[David Staples]

Brian, I completely agree with you. The problem is that it's already been reported and CompTIA has apparently responded to this other training organization that they don't have any hard evidence so it sounds like nothing is going to come of it. :-/

 

[Rick Butler]

I do think that CompTIA cares a great deal about exam integrity - I think we all do. And I personally have had my own run-in's with the braindump chumps and the companies that peddle them (I won't mention them by name in this forum). But yes, the VCE files that we see out there on the internet.

Personally, I wonder if folks at CompTIA could poison those VCE files with fake braindumps of their own, which then would reduce the confidence in using them. Bunky questions or incorrect responses that would signal the candidate perhaps used a braindump to prepare. While that wouldn't provide conclusive, smoking-gun evidence, to me, it brings up that confidence level to making sure the candidates are legit.

I think what we can do as educators is to promote good study habits and techniques that make cheating less of an attractive option and not interact with the kind of riff-raff that doesn't care about skill quality, but rather only just wants the credential, because they see that as the in-road to getting a job. (the proverbial "i have to cheat to even get into the game/get ahead" crowd - you find a lot of them outon the r/CompTIA subreddit.)

And of course, the age old axiom - if you build a better mousetrap, sometimes you just get smarter mice.

/r

 

[David Staples]

Personally, I wonder if folks at CompTIA could poison those VCE files with fake braindumps of their own, which then would reduce the confidence in using them. Bunky questions or incorrect responses that would signal the candidate perhaps used a braindump to prepare. While that wouldn't provide conclusive, smoking-gun evidence, to me, it brings up that confidence level to making sure the candidates are legit.

On the surface, I would agree, but the student mentioned that as well. That the class went through them together and corrected answers to the ones the instructor said were correct.