John Kleeman is joined by assessment luminary, Dr. Gary A. Gates, the Managing Director of Pearson VUE. Originally a nuclear physicist, Dr. Gates details his journey into the world of assessments. He discusses his key priorities going into his second year leading Pearson, the future of test centers during the rise of online proctoring and whether new AI technology is harmful or helpful to proctoring and assessments.
Full Transcript
John Keeman:
Hello everyone and welcome to Unlocking the Potential of Assessments, the show that delves into creating, delivering, and reporting on fair and reliable assessments. In each episode, we chat with assessment luminaries, influencers, subject matter experts and customers to discover and examine the latest in best practice guidance for all things assessment. I’m your host, John Kleeman, founder of Questionmark, and EVP of Industry Relations and Business Development at Learnosity, the assessment technology company.
Today really pleased to welcome Dr. Gary A. Gates, who’s managing director of Pearson VUE. Prior to joining Pearson, Gary was a company director of ITIS Holdings plc, a digital content company, and held management positions with British Nuclear Fuels plc and British Energy. Gary received his PhD in computational physics from the University of Liverpool and graduated with honors from the University of York with a BSc in theoretical physics. Welcome, Gary.
Gary A. Gates:
Thanks, John. Really, really, really glad to be here and thanks for the invitation to chat about assessments. I don’t know whether I’m a luminary, but I’ll try my best.
John Keeman:
I think you are fairly expert and interesting for our audience. So tell me, how did you move from being a nuclear physicist to in the assessment world?
Gary A. Gates:
Yeah, I mean that’s an interesting question John, and something people ask me a lot of the time. I mean, actually, I was a theoretical physicist. I mean, like Albert Einstein was. I wouldn’t say I’m in Albert Einstein’s orbit but actually … and I worked in the nuclear industry, so I used to do nuclear experiments. Worked in industry and nuclear generation. And then I moved to this digital content company you talked about, ITIS Holdings, which was basically, I helped develop some of the technology around GPS and traffic information. And I helped internationalize that business, taking it from a UK-based business to all over the world, setting up joint ventures in South Africa and China and other places and really internationalized that business. And after 10 years of developing that and the business was in its next phase of looking for new owners, I decided to move on.
And then that’s when Pearson VUE came knocking on the door. And they knocked on the door looking for someone who had experience outside the US developing a business. So, I was brought on to Pearson VUE 12 years ago to actually help grow our business outside North America. So that’s how I got into assessment. And when I got here, I didn’t really … I knew about assessment. Like us all, we’ve taken tests when we’re at school, when we’re in high school, what have you, and in college. But actually, when you look at the credentialing business and certification, it wasn’t something I was I would say completely familiar with.
But it’s something, when you think about it, it affects a lot of people around the world in terms of what we do in this industry to really help people make progress in their lives. You think about the certifications that we do, not just VUE, but everyone in this industry. Whether you’re a nurse, a doctor, a dentist, an accountant. Whether you’re getting your driving license, we have wine tasters. Unfortunately, undertakers need certifications as well. And even ironmongers, believe it or not, and rope technicians. Who would’ve thought you’d need a certification to be a rope technician? But boats have got to be safe and things have got to be tied safely. So, you need a certification.
John Keeman:
Yeah, no, I tend to think of it as we’re a gateway to life chances and it’s a really good industry to be in from that point of view. And when you came in from outside, any observations about the industry? Because we are all very used to it as you are now. But how was it then?
Gary A. Gates:
I mean, I think the question … This is 12 years ago now I came into this industry. And I think the thing for me and an observation would be that, as I said before, how diverse the industry is in terms of what certification does and what certification can bring. And I think when I look at … I think some of the things we’ve seen, there’s been tremendous changes in the industry since I’ve been here, particularly around what customers expect and understand and also delivery modes. Online proctoring is becoming more … Modalities of testing is becoming more known around the industry and expanded obviously since the pandemic.
John Keeman:
Sure, sure. And so, you’ve been with Pearson and have been part of their growth for the last 10, 12 years. What sort of things at Pearson are you proud of achieving?
Gary A. Gates:
I think the thing is, and I’ve actually been in this role as leading the Pearson business for a year now, a year yesterday. So, it’s my anniversary. I didn’t get a big cake. But yeah-
John Keeman:
Congratulations.
Gary A. Gates:
-I think that’s up to you leave. I think if you look at the achievements, we’re proud of at Pearson VUE, I would say in terms of what we do. We talked about that before in terms of our mission and our passion. Our passion is to help people make progress through their lives through the certifications that we deliver. And one thing we like to say at VUE is our vision is to turn learners into earners. So, you think about the people that we normally see in the industry, these are people who have been … they might have done the last formal exam or test in school when they were a learner, but now they want to get a certification or a license to actually practice, to actually started earning money. So, I think that’s one of the things that we’ve achieved and proud of is how do we do that? The other thing is, over the last 20 years, Pearson VUE has grown substantially.
So we’re proud of the growth that we do, but really we are also proud of the relationships we have with our customers and the partnerships that we’ve set up because you’re only as good as the people you’re working with. And also, our culture as well. We’ve got a very open culture, we’re passionate about what we do and our test takers. And the most important people that we serve, we have 500 plus organizations, we work with test sponsors. Whether that’s getting your license to get your driving test or whether it’s IT certifications or finance. Across a whole breadth of industries. But the most important people we serve is that test taker. We know that people might have spent a year, two years actually getting ready to take this certification.
And that’s what we’re passionate about is making sure that we can … It’s got to be a fair and valid test and it’s got to be in an environment which people are relaxed in and making sure our test takers are relaxed are important. The fact that they pass or fail, that’s up to them in terms of their abilities because that’s what the test is for. What we need to do is make sure they have a fair and valid testing experience. So I think what we’re passionate about and a great achievement is making sure that we service every customer we can and test take in the best way. I mean, last year in 2022, we delivered 18 and a half million tests and certifications. I mean, that’s a lot of people we have to interact with.
John Keeman:
For sure, for sure. And it feels like, as an outsider, that Pearson VUE has become a little bit more open and a little less insular in recent times. Is that fair?
Gary A. Gates:
I mean, I think that’s an interesting question. How do you define open? I think we’ve always been passionate with our customers and with our test takers and I think sometimes we might have been a bit too inwardly focused as opposed to more focused around the actual assessment industry as a whole. And that’s something we’re always looking to focus on and change as well. Because I think one of the things for us as a business, I think there’s one thing is that obviously we want to be successful as a business as Pearson VUE, but we also want to have an opportunity where we can help the business grow in terms of the certification business.
And work as an industry to make sure that we put the best interest in the industry for all of us in the industry, because it’s important that we grow together. Obviously, we have competitors and it’s a competitive situation, which is fair and what is natural. But also we need as an industry to make sure we’re working together with the industry-wide topics, making sure that people understand the value that we give and making sure that we can grow opportunities for everyone.
John Keeman:
That sounds good. And I know the association of test publishers, we’re very pleased to have Pearson’s support. So if you’ve been a year as a CEO, what are you proud of achieving in your first year and what do you see as your key priorities going forwards?
Gary A. Gates:
I think, I mean, obviously as I said John, it’s been a year in the role. I mean, I think I’ve had big shoes to step into because VUE’s been extremely successful. I think the first thing for us is making sure that we meet our financial plan. That’s like any business. Any business, if you want to be successful you have to meet your financial plan. And what I’d say is so far so good, which is good to know. But actually, I think it’s also continuing our growth and making sure that we continue to grow. And we’ve seen … We’ve signed new customers in ’22, which will launch later this year. And we’ve done some really significant renewals of business, which we’re very proud of. And we’ve also made some strategic investments in ’22. We haven’t done some for a time. Obviously, the pandemic caused everyone to … The world was very different then.
But we’ve come out of that I think stronger but also done some strategic investments, particularly in a small computer-based testing business in Brazil called Prepona. And also we announced that we were acquiring PDRI, Personnel Decisions Research Institute, which is basically a US-based business and they do workforce assessment in the federal space in the US. That’s something we announced back in December. It’s subject to US regulatory approval so that we’re going through the approval process, but we’re hoping for that to close in the coming months. So, I think they’re a few things that I’m proud of. And also proud of the fact that we continue to serve our customers in the right way and make sure we focus on them.
John Keeman:
I was just going to ask you about delivery modes and test centers because obviously there’s quite a lot of discussion in the industry as to whether test centers have a long-term future or whoever they may be will move to remote proctoring. And Pearson VUE probably is the largest test center supplier. How do you see that?
Gary A. Gates:
I mean, that’s a good question, John. I think one of the things I think is interesting is I think online proctoring is here to stay. And obviously, with our product, we have a product called OnVUE that we’ve developed and we’ve continued … we’ve invested an enormous amount in that technology over the last few years. Actually, it was an acquisition we made I’d say about seven years ago if I remember rightly but… or six years ago. But we’ve built on that. But the thing about testing, it’s a choice for the candidate but also, you’ve got to have a fair and valid test. So what we’re seeing, a multi-modal delivery in terms of channel, what people want. I mean one of the interesting things I alluded to before, we delivered 18 and a half million tests last year. Three million of those were via online proctoring.
And what is interesting is that is flat to 2021 in terms of the percentage. We did about the same percentage online proctoring exams. So, it’s here to stay. But I think it’s about candidate choice and it’s also about what the test owner wants to do, the test sponsor, in terms of what modality they want. Because there’s still a lot of issues about security. But the other thing is, and this is the other thing I think is very important, which I always think about, I talk about the customer. And one of the things I do think we’re seeing in the industry is customer experience and giving customers choice is important. I mean, one of the things I would always think about when I think about online proctoring is making sure that … Sometimes it’s other effects that you’ve got to think about and it’s what I call the postman effect.
You imagine I’ve spent six months, 12 months actually preparing for my test. Fortunately, I’ve got my own office at home and I’m on a computer and I’m ready to take. Everything’s working, internet is working. My exam starts and I know that I’ve got to concentrate on this exam and five minutes into the exam someone knocks on the door, the postman knocks on the door to actually deliver a parcel. Then all of a sudden, the dog barks, the kids run into the room. All of a sudden I don’t have a valid testing experience. So I think you’ve got to think about not only the convenience but also the tension for a test taker. What is the best environment for them? I mean, one of the things about online proctoring of course is you don’t actually … the actual test taker actually has to control the environment, part of the environment, the computer, the internet and what have you. So that’s another stress.
So, there’s stress factors that can happen. And the other thing is, I think there’s also an equality point of view and fairness point of view. Some people do not have their own office. Some people don’t have a space where they’d be comfortable to do a test. So I think you’ve got to be careful when you assume that, oh, online proctoring is the philosopher’s stone for computer-based testing. I think it’s one of the philosopher’s stones, but it is not everything. And that’s something we’re seeing because we’re seeing that our customers don’t want … you want is a modality but not for all customers. So I would say the test center is not dead. I think it’s something that people want and we’re seeing people want it and using it and we’re actually expanding our test center network, not reducing it.
John Keeman:
That’s interesting. And I think the inclusivity argument is interesting. There’s some people, as you say, don’t have the computer resources at home and things. Is there not any sort of economic challenge in that test centers are much more expensive than online proctors or does it not work that way?
Gary A. Gates:
See, it’s interesting because one of the analogies I like to use sometimes is I go and book a ticket on a plane, a big A380 with 600 seats. Or I go and have my own individual plane that I take off. Which is more expensive? I mean, one of the things is that with online proctoring, you obviously don’t have the physical network. But when you think about it, one of the things you do, and it all depends on your proctoring ratio or if you’re using AI for proctoring, which maybe we’ll come on to later. But the cost dynamics of test center is extremely efficient when you’ve got high utilization. So actually, I would argue that you could actually deliver tests more economically actually in a test center for certain types of tests when you’ve got high utilization. And it’s like booking your seat in an airplane.
If you’ve got good utilization then it’s cheaper. So I think there’s a misnomer in the industry, “Oh, online proctoring must be cheaper.” The other thing that you have to have, and this is the other problem that you have, is candidate experience. When the candidate controls half the environment, then what do they feel like in terms of making sure the candidate doesn’t feel stressed and has problems? And the problems are nothing to do with the supplier of the service. A lot of the times the problem could be due to the candidate because they don’t have the right environment. So that’s a lot of things that we’ve developed to make sure that the environment is the best we can do. But you still don’t have the same sort of, I would say, test center deliveries are much more controlled and it’s a better user experience completely, I think. But that’s my own personal view.
John Keeman:
It’s a very interesting perspective. So let’s move on to AI since you mentioned it and I think perhaps two angles of AI. One is AI for proctoring or proctoring support and the other is any perspectives on ChatGPT and all this generative AI that’s taken the world by storm.
Gary A. Gates:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s … The first thing on proctoring, we use AI but we use it in a way that is human managed. So we use AI on our online proctoring where it might be things like object detection or a face moves out. So, it’s broad brush. But it’s actually assisting a proctor. We would never use AI to make a decision about a candidate choice. It’s always human managed and human controlled. And we think that’s extremely important because there’s been a lot of bias in AI discussions and understanding in those sorts of things. So, I think that’s extremely important. We still think you need the human to be able to do that. We don’t think the technology’s up to it. And also I think it does give people on the other … the candidate more angst.
We’ve seen that a lot in the higher ed industry recently as we know in the last 12 to 18 months. So that’s one side of the AI. The other side of the AI is obviously ChatGPT has been very high in the press over the last month or so. And I think it’s quite interesting. And actually, I’ve seen an article yesterday that said they’re now thinking of charging for premier access to it. I think £20 … $20 a month for some people because you can’t get on it. It’s really interesting. I think for the industry, the two things that … I think we should embrace it, we should embrace technology. We should not be afraid of it just in any way. I mean, I remember … Can you remember search when … life before a search engine? I-
John Keeman:
Just about. Yes. Yes.
Gary A. Gates:
I’ve got a search engine, an old search engine in my house, which is the Encyclopedia Britannica, which I inherited from my father when he passed away. And that was when I was a child. The search engine, you’d look in the first index, then you’d look for the book, then we obviously got search engines with the evolution of the internet. Now, with this AI technology, you’re getting even more now. I think there is a threat to it in terms of cheating and obviously what people do. But actually for the computer-based testing industry and using proctoring, in some ways that doubles down on the fact that you need to have… Proctoring is a good way of making sure people aren’t cheating, but I think from an opportunity point of view, I think this technology could help us improve our security I think in terms of what we do.
Also, test development in terms of developing test items. I think you could start to use that technology to do it. So I think it’s an opportunity, not a threat. And I think it’s something that as an industry we should embrace. And we know if you’re seeing, particularly in the schools and higher ed market, there’s a lot of conversations now about … I heard quite recently the schools are asking people not to do homework at home anymore because they’ll just go on to ChatGPT or actually saying you have to write essays with a pen. We have to embrace … We don’t want … We shouldn’t be scared.
And I think as an industry, I think it’s something we should talk about at the industry level to actually make sure that we can give advice to our test owners and test takers alike because people will want to know what our response is. And the other thing I think is important is that with the search engines, ChatGPT, AI, the fact is nowadays it’s not the information you know, it’s how you use information. And that’s what we’re trying to do with any assessment. It’s not exactly, “Do you know the square root of two?” Actually, “Do you know how to get the square root of two as opposed to, “Do you know what the answer is?” And that’s what, in the assessment industry, we’re experts at and we should be open and look at the opportunity that this technology gives us.
John Keeman:
No, I agree with you. I think we’re going to see a future where everybody’s got AI systems just like we’ve all got calculators or Google and we need to adapt the kinds of things we assess to deal with that. And it sounds like we’re aligned on that. So, I know that you’ve just… Pearson VUE have just brought out a value of certification survey that reviewed input from quite a lot of people. Do you want to share a little bit about that for our listeners?
Gary A. Gates:
Yeah, thanks, John. And that’s… Yeah, it’s a really interesting report and obviously, anyone can get it… You can get ahold of it on the Pearson VUE website. I think you have to click and you can download the report, which is extremely detailed. Actually, we do this every two years. So, it’s the 2023 Value of IT Certification. And as you know, we do a lot of IT certifications at VUE and this is done in conjunction with our test sponsors. What we’ve done is we’ve spoken to over 21,000 candidates and people over 176 countries and got a vast amount of information about what’s going on in the certification, particularly as it comes to IT. Maybe I could just highlight some. I mean, I can’t go into all of it.
John Keeman:
I’d love to hear that. Yes, yes, go ahead.
Gary A. Gates:
There’s a lot of graphs and things, but I welcome people to download it. And I just love data as a physicist, as you probably gather. But anyway, a couple of key highlights. I think one of the interesting things and something which I should think resonates with the whole industry is we ask people about whether they … taking the certification, are they getting a better opportunity? And what was interesting is 37% got a salary increase direct related to their certification. 37%. 43% are expecting a salary increase and I think it was about 37% got a promotion. So actually that shows you the value of certification and what’s happening if you have the right certification. So that’s extremely powerful. I think the other interesting thing is a confidence question. We ask them… We ask people how confident are they? What has that given them from a certification point of view having taken those certifications they did?
And 92% of people said they were more confident in terms of the work they were doing and 81% said they were actually more confident to look for a new job opportunity, whether that’s in the company they are or moving elsewhere. So actually as well as they could see better job opportunities increase earnings but also increase confidence, which is quite powerful when you’re talking to these people. There was a couple of other things I thought was quite interesting. One of them was around the skills gap. And we were thinking that this skills gap is going to shrink faster in the sense that what we did ask, we asked people when did they start thinking about taking a certification? When did they take their first certification? In terms of what percentage talked about that when they were learning in college basically.
Interestingly, 7% of baby boomers thought about certification when they were in learning, in their formal learning. 15% were millennials and 42% are in Gen Z. So, what you’re seeing is actually young people at a much younger age are thinking of certification much earlier in their career, which I think is quite interesting for us as an industry. And I think that points to two things. One is the fact that the power of certification has seemed to be more relevant for people. I think the other thing is that we’ve all seen the news about how much more degrees are and getting undergraduate degrees getting quite expensive, particularly in the US. And I think people are seeing certification and particularly in the IT space as a way of getting their job and maybe thinking about, “Well, do I need a degree or maybe I don’t need everything I used to need.”
And in terms of actually using certification as more of a stepping stone to actually getting your first job than just having an undergraduate degree or thinking about another opportunity and path into work. And I think the other thing that I just highlight is something related to the pandemic. I mean, what we did see, we think it’s related to the pandemic, is if you look at the future workspace and future skills and IT skills, we’ve seen an increase. 65% of candidates and 55% of employees said they invested more in IT skills over the last few years, which we think is a direct effect of the pandemic where people are … got to really have these IT skills to be able to function. So I think they’re four of the key highlights. But there’s lots of data there. There’s lots of graphs for people to mull over by region, by country, by certification. It’s really interesting. So if people want to dig in more, look at our website and download the report.
John Keeman:
Thank you. I certainly will look at it. So, look, as we come towards the end of this podcast, what do you see as the major industry changes? How do you see the future of assessment? What’s going to change, or what are the key issues facing us in the next few years?
Gary A. Gates:
I think what I would say John, I mean, we’ve talked about AI, which is obviously something that’s on top of everyone’s mind. I think the other thing is, and I alluded to this before, is I think customer experience I think is going to be extremely important. I think people are becoming more used to becoming consumers. I think if you look 15, 20 years ago it would’ve been a case, well, that’s your test. I don’t care… You’ve got to find a way to get it, how you actually log on, how you spend. But nowadays, people expect a more seamless experience. I think that’s going to be something that as an industry we have to think about. I mean this goes back to the other question you said about modality. Are you in a test center? Are you online? It depends because the customer… Online mightn’t be good for them because I’ve said but even a test center, it may be difficult to get there because there’s not one in the region.
So, we have to think about that. In fact, from a Pearson VUE perspective, we now have our own customer experience team looking at these things because we think it’s so important that we’re investing in this. I think the other thing is that many certifications now are global and I think one of the things we’re seeing is the ever-changing world of data privacy and candidate data and understanding that we’ve seen new laws in China on data. We’ve obviously got Europe with GDPR and those sort of things. And the Middle East. We’re seeing some things in the Middle East. And people understand now data, it’s their data. So understanding how that changes and making sure as an industry we can respond to that and make sure we can keep doing what we’re doing to help people get their certifications. The other thing I think that we need to think about is the value of certification.
We’ve talked about that. We’ve seen, particularly in some emissions places, test emission space, test optional type of approach. So we need to, as an industry, keep driving the value of certification, looking at data. Just like I’ve alluded to with our Value of IT Certification report. That shows you the real power of certification and what we do. So thinking about that, John, and to your next question you said is what do I think about the future for certification and the industry. Personally, I think the future is very bright. I mean, we all went through the pandemic and it was difficult for everyone, like it was for every industry. And I think we’ve come out of the pandemic actually stronger than when we went into the pandemic. I think one thing I would say, which is extremely important for us in industry is, why do I think it’s bright? Well, the big thing at the moment is people are getting older, which is great.
People are going to be living longer, but also people are going to be working longer. We all see everything going on in pensions around the world and I think that means that people are going to have longer careers. And then there’s a re-skilling and learning opportunity. And I think one of the things I think for us is people think about their career paths. My career path’s been quite odd, as we talked about at the start, from a physicist to where I am today. But in between those, I’ve done learning and I’ve done various things to improve things I didn’t learn at college. I didn’t know what discounted cash flow was as a theoretical physicist. But I think you have to learn those things and you can get certifications. So, I think the future’s bright because I think, as you’ve seen in our future of IT certification, it’s very valid.
And I think as people want to re-skill and things change, who knows what’s going to happen with jobs, with the AI like ChatGPT, quantum computing, something I’m quite interested in. What’s that going to do to the world and the industry? We are still a very… human-centric is so important and I think where the value for us is as an industry is thinking about how we can help turn those learners into earners and make that a lifelong journey for people to get the certifications they need. Because most people in their mid-thirties, forties don’t want to go back to college to learn for two years. If they can do some learning and a certification to prove it, it helps them sustain their life and also get progress through their certification. So, I think it’s bright. I think the other thing I would say is in the industry we need to work together to make sure we can tell that message and create an environment in which we talk about these things.
John Keeman:
Lovely to hear and I really love that vision and I think it’s a vision a lot of our listeners I suspect will be able to buy into as well. Thank you, Gary, really appreciate you sharing your thoughts and thank you also to all our listeners, we appreciate your support. And don’t forget, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, why not follow us through your favorite listening platform? Also, please reach out to me directly at john@questionmark.com with any questions, comments, or if you’d like to keep the conversation going. And you can also check out the Pearson VUE survey on the Pearson VUE website and also, the Questionmark website at www.questionmark.com has some best practice webinars that we’d love you to join. We host monthly. Thanks again everybody, and please tune in for another exciting podcast discussion we’ll be releasing shortly.