The Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) has selected computer-based testing and assessment company, Pearson Vue, for preparing the questions for its pharmacy and nursing examinations.

Pearson Vue is a unit of Pearson, the international media company, whose businesses include the Financial Times Group, Pearson Education and the Penguin Group.

HAAD, responsible for licensing, quality control and regulation of all healthcare facilities and professional practitioners in Abu Dhabi, said Pearson VUE was selected for the item development project following a public tender.

“The new project with HAAD involves creation of questions or tasks to be assessed, which is a very complex science,” said Suzana Lopes, VP sales and marketing EMEA, Pearson Vue.

'In order to ensure that every item is an accurate measurement of the test taker’s knowledge, it must be created through a partnership of subject matter and assessment expertise to ensure that the exam questions are valid, reliable and current,' Lopes explained.

'Meeting these standards is of paramount importance to providing a fair and accurate assessment of test-taker competence,' she added.

Dr Omniyat Mohammed Al-Hajeri, manager of Health Professionals Licensing and Health Regulation at HAAD, said, 'We selected Pearson Vue as our partner to help us develop examination questions for our Nursing and Pharmacy examinations because of the company’s strong content development and psychometric expertise.'

'We are confident in Pearson VUE’s reputation as a full-service testing company that can provide customised solutions for end-to-end testing processes from item creation to data management,' he noted.

The company said the new contract comes on the heels of another project for computer-based testing for the Health Professionals Licensure Examinations from HAAD

Pearson VUE is a global leader in computer-based testing for information technology, academic, government and professional testing programmes around the world.

The company provides a full suite of services from test development to data management, and delivers exams through the world’s most comprehensive and secure network of test centres in 165 countries.-TradeArabia News Service