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Determining gender differential item functioning for mathematics in coeducational school culture
Shanmugam, S. Kanageswari Suppiah1.
Purpose - In an attempt to explore item characteristics that behave
differently between boys and girls, this comparative study examines
gender Differential Item Functioning in a school culture that is noted
to be ‘thriving’ mathematically.
Methodology - Some 24 grade eight mathematics items from
TIMSS 2003 and TIMSS 2007 released items, with equal number of
computation and word problem items were administered on 460 boys
and 445 girls studying in Grade Eight from three secondary Chinesemedium coeducational schools. Word problem items were defined
as items set in a real-world context. Content validity was established
by constructing a table of specifications. By employing the software
WINSTEPS version 3.67.0 that is based on the Rasch Model for
dichotomous responses, Differential Item Functioning analysis was
conducted by using Mantel-Haenszel Chi-square method. DIF items
were flagged when the Mantel-Haenszel probability value was less
than 0.05 and classified as negligible, moderate or large DIF based on
the DIF size suggested by Educational Testing Service DIF category.
The focal and reference groups were girls and boys respectively. The
main delimitation was substantive analysis by using expert judgment
was not conducted to identify biased items.
Findings - Using Mantel-Haenszel chi-square, two moderate
DIF items that assess subtraction favoured girls. They assessed
Knowing from topics Whole Number and Fraction. Sources of DIF
are linguistics density and item presentation style. The findings
suggest that with only two moderate DIF mathematics items, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the mathematics items
functioned differently between boys and girls in school culture
noted for successful mathematics learning, even though linguistics
complexities of the test language cannot be ignored.
Significance - While constructing Mathematics multiple choice
items, careful considerations need to be given in selecting suitable
numbers in composing the content of the item so that, only the
correct algorithm would produce the correct answer ‘if and only
if’ those numbers are used. The modest results of detecting two
moderate DIF items nevertheless inform national testing agencies
and teacher educators on the principles of building fair items as
a part of their test improvement practice in the 21st Century. The
novelty of this study is that gender Differential Item Functioning
was studied in the context of school culture, which is notable for
successful mathematics learning.
Affiliation:
- Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
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Indexation |
Indexed by |
MyJurnal (2021) |
H-Index
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3 |
Immediacy Index
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0.000 |
Rank |
0 |
Indexed by |
Scopus 2020 |
Impact Factor
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CiteScore (2) |
Rank |
Q1 (Cultural Studies) Q2 (Education) Q3¬¬¬ (Psychology (all)) |
Additional Information |
SJR (0.385) |
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