Including Certification Testing in Curriculum

[Sandi]

Hi there,

In our IT programs, we provide students with vouchers which cover the cost of whichever certification exams may be covered in that program. For example, in our beginning IT program, we provide the students with vouchers to take the A+ and Network+ exams, however, many of them never seem to get around to taking them, and of course, we are supposed to provide pass rates for the exams. I have heard of some schools and programs that basically embed the certification exams into the coursework.

Does anyone have an example of best practices on how to do this, and to get the students to actually take the exam.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sandis
Program Director
Training Programs
Indiana Wesleyan University6

 

[Mark Anthony Germanos]

Do you get dinged for students who never take the certification exams?

 

[Rick Butler]

Hi there,

In our IT programs, we provide students with vouchers which cover the cost of whichever certification exams may be covered in that program. For example, in our beginning IT program, we provide the students with vouchers to take the A+ and Network+ exams, however, many of them never seem to get around to taking them, and of course, we are supposed to provide pass rates for the exams. I have heard of some schools and programs that basically embed the certification exams into the coursework.

Does anyone have an example of best practices on how to do this, and to get the students to actually take the exam.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sandis
Program Director
Training Programs
Indiana Wesleyan University6

Great question, Sandi.

So we've tried different strategies at IntelliTec over the years. Now, our courses run six weeks with 120 instructional contact hours for each subject. We have consistently noted that student preparedness is about 50% by the time that time is over. Notwithstanding instructional prowess, student engagement, or some other concern that may add to, or take away from that average, this is roughly the average. We figured it would take one hour a night beyond that point, for six weeks to get certification ready and were seeing pass rates above 90%.

When I was running the program, each course came with a voucher as part of the courses fees and sadly a lot of students never redeemed their voucher. So that was discontinued as it was seen as collecting money from the student for nothing. However, in those times, the denominator was low, because students didn't all take their tests, for the reasons you mentioned. But we did have more students attempting and passing the exam.

Later, in an effort to spur on more testing, we required students to take the exam at the end of the course. Students passing the exam would have up to an 'A' for the course. For students taking and failing the exam, the best grade they would get would be a 'B'. Students deciding not to take the exam at all would, at best, earn a 'C'. This was pretty unpopular among students and led to a lot of students either failing the course or wasting a voucher. Pass rates were abysmal. Mathematically, the numerator remained the same, the denominator increased greatly.

Today, IntelliTec offers vouchers to any student who earned an 'A' in the course, but they would request it from the Program Supervisor. Our internal testing center sees about 5-10 candidates testing, per month, from a revolving average of 115 from our largest campus. What the pass rates are, I am not sure.

Now as far as pass rates, I believe you can get a report that will show pass and failure for vouchers purchased through your CAPP association. PVTC produces a report of everyone who takes an exam through a test center, if you're locally testing people. But collecting test rates may be a challenge, leading you to having to ask or investigate students of whether they passed or not.

So, that's my 2¢. Hope it helps.

/r

 

[Abby N Krane]

Hi there,

In our IT programs, we provide students with vouchers which cover the cost of whichever certification exams may be covered in that program. For example, in our beginning IT program, we provide the students with vouchers to take the A+ and Network+ exams, however, many of them never seem to get around to taking them, and of course, we are supposed to provide pass rates for the exams. I have heard of some schools and programs that basically embed the certification exams into the coursework.

Does anyone have an example of best practices on how to do this, and to get the students to actually take the exam.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sandis
Program Director
Training Programs
Indiana Wesleyan University6

I work for a commercial training provider, not an academic. We provide training associated with a couple of state government-funded programs. The biggest thing we have in place is that there are tasks or homework to earn their exam vouchers. They are not just provided to them. Generally, the tasks are, to attend 90% of the scheduled class, finish all of the labs, finish all of the practice lesson questions, and earn an 80% or higher on the practice assessment. We use CertMaster products. Having assignments like this and tasks has really helped the pass rate. There will still be people who disappear and quit. The same model of having homework and tasks to earn the voucher is done for the other types of training we offer as well. You are given a deadline, and you have to do certain tasks by then which include some sort of unit or lesson questions, and practice tests, before you get your exam voucher. You don't finish your tasks, no exam voucher. We really look at our pass rates and I keep track of everyone because for the 1 state program, we have funding for, we have to front everything financially, we then get reimbursed when the actual credential or certificate is submitted to the state. They don't pass, we don't get paid.