Public policy making relies on accurate information, but standardized and other mandated tests may not accurately evaluate the abilities and knowledge of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Many individuals find tests difficult, but individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing may find them especially so. Reports from the 2008 Test Equity…

In spite of the growing interest in cross-cultural research and assessment, there is little research on statistical procedures that can be used to simultaneously assess the differential item functioning (DIF) across multiple groups. The chief objective of this work is to show a unified framework for the analysis of DIF in multiple groups using one…

This paper demonstrates and discusses the use of think aloud protocols (TAPs) as an approach for examining and confirming sources of differential item functioning (DIF). The TAPs are used to investigate to what extent surface characteristics of the items that are identified by expert reviews as sources of DIF are supported by empirical evidence…

This article reports the adaptation and analysis of Pintrich's Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) in Hong Kong. First, this study examined the psychometric qualities of the existing Chinese version of MSLQ (MSLQ-CV). Based on this examination, this study developed a revised Chinese version of MSLQ (MSLQ-RCV) for junior…

This validity study examined differential item functioning (DIF) results on large-scale state standards-based English-language arts assessments at grades 4 and 8 for students without disabilities taking the test under standard conditions and students who are blind or visually impaired taking the test with either a large print or braille form.…

Cross-lingual tests are assessment instruments created in one language and adapted for use with another language group. Practitioners and researchers use cross-lingual tests for various descriptive, analytical and selection purposes both in comparative studies across nations and within countries marked by linguistic diversity (Hambleton, 2005).…

This study examined the effect of including or excluding repeaters on the equating process and results. New forms of two tests were equated to their respective old forms using either all examinees or only the first timer examinees in the new form sample. Results showed that for both tests used in this study, including or excluding repeaters in the…

Investigations of differential item functioning (DIF) have been conducted mostly on ability tests and have found little evidence of easily interpretable differences across various demographic subgroups. In this study, we examined the degree to which DIF in biographical data items referencing academically relevant background, experiences, and…

The Assessment of Children's Hand Skills (ACHS) is a new assessment tool that utilizes a naturalistic observational method to capture children's real-life hand skill performance when engaging in various types of activities. The ACHS also intends to be used with both typically developing children and those presenting with disabilities. The purpose…

The multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) method with a pure short anchor was proposed to detect differential item functioning (DIF). A simulation study showed that the MIMIC method with an anchor of 1, 2, 4, or 10 DIF-free items yielded a well-controlled Type I error rate even when such tests contained as many as 40% DIF items. In general,…

In this article, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown offer findings from a close textual analysis of how the Texas social studies standards address race, racism, and communities of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, the authors uncover the sometimes subtle ways that the standards can appear to adequately address…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine the key implementation issues of a standards-based teacher evaluation system as perceived by campus administrators. The 80 campus administrators that participated in this study were from six public school districts located in southeastern Texas that serve students in grades Kindergarten…

When Item Response Theory (IRT) is operationally applied for large scale assessments, unidimensionality is typically assumed. This assumption requires that the test measures a single latent trait. Furthermore, when tests are vertically scaled using IRT, the assumption of unidimensionality would require that the battery of tests across grades…

This is the College Board's response to a research article by Drs. Maria Veronica Santelices and Mark Wilson in the Harvard Educational Review, entitled "Unfair Treatment? The Case of Freedle, the SAT, and the Standardization Approach to Differential Item Functioning" (see EJ930622).

In complex three-dimensional mental rotation tasks males have been reported to score up to one standard deviation higher than females. However, this effect size estimate could be compromised by the presence of gender bias at the item level, which calls the validity of purely quantitative performance comparisons into question. We hypothesized that…