The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) and the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AIAN FACES) are separate studies done successively over time. One goal for these studies is to provide a national picture of children's readiness for school. In this research brief, the authors use…

This study presents estimates of Black-White, Hispanic-White, and income achievement gaps using data from two different types of reading and mathematics assessments: constructed-response assessments that were likely more cognitively demanding and state achievement tests that were likely less cognitively demanding (i.e., composed solely or largely…

Previous research on calculator use in standardized assessments of quantitative ability focused on the effect of calculator availability on item difficulty and on whether test developers can predict these effects. With the introduction of an on-screen calculator on the Quantitative Reasoning measure of the "GRE"® revised General Test, it…

In this study, we investigated gender and minority achievement gaps on 8th-grade science items employing a multilevel item response methodology. Both gaps were wider on physics and earth science items than on biology and chemistry items. Larger gender gaps were found on items with specific topics favoring male students than other items, for…

Recent research examining racial differences on standardized cognitive tests has focused on the impact of test item difficulty. Studies using data from the SAT and GRE have reported a correlation between item difficulty and differential item functioning (DIF) such that minority test takers are less likely than majority test takers to respond…

The first of two studies reported examined the factors that predict differences in item responses for black and white matched examinees to analogies on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). Data were taken from 13 forms of the GRE Verbal Test, with a median sample size of 21,000 whites and a median sample size of 1,400 blacks for the purpose of…

The stability was evaluated of a partial correlation index, comparisons of item characteristic curves, and comparisions of item difficulties in assessing race and sex differences in the performance of verbal items on the Graduate Record Examination Aptitude Test. All three indexes exhibited consistency in identifying the same items in different…

The purpose of this study was to gauge the disadvantage, if any, of reaching difficult items that appear earlier in a test, at the expense of not reaching easier items that appear later in a test. The study focused on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) data and examined the effect for females, Asian…

A procedure used to average several Mantel-Haenszel delta difference values for an item is described and evaluated. The differential item functioning (DIF) procedure used by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) is based on the Mantel-Haenszel statistical technique for studying matched groups. It is standard procedure at ETS to analyze test items…

Whether the shaping of test items can itself result in qualitative differences in examinees' comprehension of reading passages was studied using the Pearson-Johnson item classification system. The specific practice studied incorporated, within an item stem line, references that point the examinee to a specific location within a reading passage.…

Two psychometric approaches for the investigation of item bias were employed to examine the performance of four sociocultural groups on six subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R). The sample of 950 students was from Pima County, Arizona. One approach involved the comparison of the psychometric indices of…

Item difficulty patterns of four groups of nonreferred, average children (ages 7 1/2 and l0 1/2)--Anglos, Blacks, Chicanos and Bermudians--were compared on each of the verbal subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. Item difficulty curves were remarkably parallel. (Author/HLM)

The purpose of this study was to identify differentially functioning items on operational administrations of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) through the use of the Mantel-Haenszel statistic. Retrospective analyses of data collected over 3 years are reported for black/white and female/male comparisons for the Verbal and Quantitative…

Latent trait theory is used as a basis for a definition of item bias, and an experiment is described in which a test of vocabulary items was not found to be biased when administered to two groups of high school students, one group of 58 black students and the other 168 white students. The experiment for the detection of bias began with separate…

The agreement between the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Golden Rule Insurance Company of Illinois is interpreted as setting the general principles on which items must be selected to be included in a licensure test. These principles put a limit to the difficulty level of any item, and they also limit the size of the difference in…