TY - JOUR
T1 - An analysis of Differential Item Functioning on INVALSI tests, designed to explore gender gap in mathematical tasks
AU - Cascella, Clelia
AU - Giberti, Chiara
AU - Bolondi, Giorgio
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Open Access Publishing Fund of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - This study presents a quantitative approach based on Differential Item Functioning analysis within the Item Response Theory framework, to quantify gender differences in tackling specific mathematical items. We use this approach to explore two crucial topics in mathematics education (misconceptions in decimal numbers, and estimation) by analysing answers given by Italian students to specific mathematical items taken from a sample of 1400 items administered in INVALSI tests since 2008. For each item, we have a sample of 30,000 students per year, statistically representative of the entire Italian student population. The results section presents a didactic interpretation of the statistical evidence and shows how interdisciplinarity between statistics and mathematics education, with a mixed-method approach (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004), represents a good approach to exploring the gender gap in relation to specific constructs of math education. This approach, common in many disciplines, can also make an interesting contribution to mathematics education research.
AB - This study presents a quantitative approach based on Differential Item Functioning analysis within the Item Response Theory framework, to quantify gender differences in tackling specific mathematical items. We use this approach to explore two crucial topics in mathematics education (misconceptions in decimal numbers, and estimation) by analysing answers given by Italian students to specific mathematical items taken from a sample of 1400 items administered in INVALSI tests since 2008. For each item, we have a sample of 30,000 students per year, statistically representative of the entire Italian student population. The results section presents a didactic interpretation of the statistical evidence and shows how interdisciplinarity between statistics and mathematics education, with a mixed-method approach (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004), represents a good approach to exploring the gender gap in relation to specific constructs of math education. This approach, common in many disciplines, can also make an interesting contribution to mathematics education research.
KW - Differential Item Functioning
KW - Gender gap
KW - Large scale assessment
KW - Mathematics education
KW - Rasch model
U2 - 10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.100819
DO - 10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.100819
M3 - Article
VL - 64
JO - Studies in Educational Evaluation
JF - Studies in Educational Evaluation
M1 - 100819
ER -
