Gender fairness within the Force Concept Inventory
Gender fairness within the Force Concept Inventory
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DOI：
10.1103/physrevphyseducres.14.010103
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发表时间：
2018-01-18
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Lindell, Rebecca
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Traxler, Adrienne;Henderson, Rachel;Lindell, Rebecca
对力量概念量表（FCI）的测试结构的研究在很大程度上忽略了性别，而对FCI性别效应（通常被报道为“性别差距”）的研究很少询问测试的结构。这些很少交叉的研究流留下了这样一种可能性，即FCI在结构上可能不适用于所有性别，特别是因为许多报告的结果来自微积分课程，其中75%或更多的学生是男性。我们研究了FCI考虑心理测量学和性别分解（同时承认这是一个二元简化），并发现几个有问题的问题，其删除减少了明显的性别差距。我们分析了三个样本（总N-pre = 5391，N-post = 5769）寻找性别不对称，使用经典的测试理论，项目反应理论，和差异项目功能。这些方法的结合突出了六个项目，似乎大大不公平的妇女和两个项目偏向妇女。没有单一的物理概念或先前的经验统一这些问题，但它们与先前研究中确定的问题项目大致一致。在这项研究中，删除所有显著性别不公平的项目，使主要样本中的性别差距减半。我们建议使用FCI的教师报告简化工具分数以及30个项目的分数，并且不使用有偏见的项目分配给学生的学分或其他好处。
Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across genders, particularly since many reported results come from calculus-based courses where 75% or more of the students are men. We examine the FCI considering both psychometrics and gender disaggregation (while acknowledging this as a binary simplification), and find several problematic questions whose removal decreases the apparent gender gap. We analyze three samples (total N-pre = 5391, N-post = 5769) looking for gender asymmetries using classical test theory, item response theory, and differential item functioning. The combination of these methods highlights six items that appear substantially unfair to women and two items biased in favor of women. No single physical concept or prior experience unifies these questions, but they are broadly consistent with problematic items identified in previous research. Removing all significantly gender-unfair items halves the gender gap in the main sample in this study. We recommend that instructors using the FCI report the reduced-instrument score as well as the 30-item score, and that credit or other benefits to students not be assigned using the biased items.