Gender Gap in Comparative Studies of Reading Comprehension: To What Extent Do the Test Characteristics Make a Difference?

Abstract

In this article we discuss how apparently indicators that may appear straightforward, such as gender differences, need to be interpreted with extreme care. In particular, we consider how the assessment framework, and the methodology of international surveys, may have a potential impact on the results and on the indicators. Through analysis of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data we show how increases or decreases in the achievement of some groups of students (either of whole countries or population subgroups like males and females) can, at least partially, result from variations in the framework or the methodology of the respective assessments. The analyses provide evidence that the gender gap is larger for open-ended questions, for continuous texts and for more cognitively demanding reading tasks.

10 Gutte- og jentelesere i topp og bunn. En utforsking av leserprofiler

“…Tidligere studier har funnet at kjønnsforskjellen i jentenes favør er størst når elevene leser skjønnlitteraere tekster (Solheim & Lundetrae, 2016). I tillegg gjør jentene det ofte bedre enn guttene på oppgaver der de må bruke egne erfaringer og reflektere over det de har lest, spesielt når de må formulere og skrive svaret selv (Lafontaine & Monseur, 2009;Roe & Taube, 2003;Schwabe, McElvany & Trendtel, 2015). Denne typen funn er basert på gjennomsnittsskårer for alle elevene, på tvers av mestringsnivå.…”

Opening the Black Box: Prospects for Using International Large-Scale Assessments to Explore Classroom Effects

“…These gaps manifest at a very early point in a child's education (Bedard & Cho, 2010). However, the gender gap may be declining in some countries (Hyde & Mertz, 2009), and methodological issues could account for part of the size of these differences (LaFontaine & Monseur, 2009). The children of immigrants also tend to do worse than native-born children (Alba et al, 2011).…”

Lesekompetenzen von Jugendlichen in unterschiedlichen Schulformen: Systematische Vor- und Nachteile bei verschiedenen Antwortformaten in Large-Scale Assessments

“…The existent studies have focused mostly on item content as a source of DIF (Pae 2004;Haberkorn et al 2012). However, item format-as another item feature-has also been shown to be highly relevant in the context of DIF in reading tests (Rodriguez 2002;Lafontaine and Monseur 2009;Taylor and Lee 2012;Schwabe et al 2015). Regarding school tracking, literature discusses mainly three potential sources of differences in mean reading achievement, which might also relate to the emergence of specific strengths and weaknesses of students attending different tracks: (a) individual and social differences in students' preconditions at school entry (Luyten et al 2003), (b) institutional, and/or (c) compositional aspects of the different school tracks (e.g., Becker et al 2012).…”