Chinese Delegates Visit ACT for Training Sessions, Annual Meeting

Seven delegates from the National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA) of the People’s Republic of China visited ACT for three weeks in fall 2009 to participate in training sessions and attend ACT’s annual meeting.

The delegates attended sessions on test development and psychometrics led by ACT staff. They also sat in on a lecture at The University of Iowa and toured the local area.

Seven delegates from the National Education Examinations Authority of the People’s Republic of China visited ACT for three weeks in October to participate in training sessions and attend ACT’s annual meeting. They are, from left to right, Ning Han, Qingsi Liu, Liya Jiao, Jingcai Chen, Rui Chen, Xiaobo Huang, and Yang Liu.

The NEEA is an institution directly under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and appointed by the MoE to exclusively undertake educational examinations.

NEEA’s functions are to:

• Participate in the drafting of policies and regulations related to examinations organized by the MoE.
• Carry out test construction, score analysis, and evaluation for the Entrance Examination to Higher Education.
• Perform duties to self-taught higher education examinations imposed by relevant State Council and MoE regulations.
• Provide public tests service, including developing or administering certificate tests and offering qualifications.
• Carry out test administration and supervision, including test paper production and distribution, test implementation, and scoring.
• Administer examinations entrusted by overseas examination organizations with authorization from MoE.
• Carry out research in testing and personnel training, with the purpose of making the national testing profession more diversified and standardized.