Let’s Talk It Out! – Conducting Candidate Interviews in Exam Security Investigations

I.C.E. Exchange Program Description: Traditional exam security techniques do an effective job of alerting us that an incident has occurred which threatens the integrity of an exam program. The problem is these measures do not always tell us what happened or how the perpetrators were able to circumvent security controls. Also, they do not usually provide evidence of who was behind the nefarious activity.

It is a truism in law enforcement that to understand a criminal plot, investigators must obtain statements from those inside the conspiracy. This also applies to exam security, where the proxy test organizations and content harvesters work with the candidates who hire them, thus creating a conspiracy.

Like our colleagues in law enforcement, exam security professionals also benefit from speaking with those who are inside the conspiracy. And although the proxy testers and content sellers themselves are unlikely to tell us what happened, we still have useful witnesses in the form of errant candidates. As a result of their participation in the misconduct, candidates are often able to supply useful information about how security measures were bypassed and who was involved.

Further, exam sponsors usually have the means to incentivize candidates to participate in interviews. One way of doing so is to offer a reduction in the severity or duration of their consequence for the misconduct. Of course, any concessions made must be contingent upon complete and truthful cooperation.

This session will introduce tools and techniques to manage a candidate interview as a means of investigating an exam misconduct incident. It will draw on the presenters’ experiences with past investigations and will present industry best practices based on what works, and what does not.