Racial and gender bias in ability and achievement tests - Resolving the apparent paradox

Citation
Je. Hunter et Fl. Schmidt, Racial and gender bias in ability and achievement tests - Resolving the apparent paradox, PSYCH PUB L, 6(1), 2000, pp. 151-158
Citations number
12
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
PSYCHOLOGY PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW
ISSN journal
1076-8971 → ACNP
Volume
6
Issue
1
Year of publication
2000
Pages
151 - 158
Database
ISI
SICI code
1076-8971(200003)6:1<151:RAGBIA>2.0.ZU;2-R
Abstract
The study of potential racial and gender bias in individual test items is a major research area today. The fact that research has established that tot al scores on ability and achievement tests are predictively unbiased raises the question of whether there is in fact any real bias at the item level. No theoretical rationale for expecting such bias has been advanced. It appe ars that findings of item bias (differential item functioning; DIF) can be explained by three factors: failure to control for measurement error in abi lity estimates, violations of the unidimensionality assumption required by DIF detection methods, and reliance on significance testing (causing tiny a rtifactual DIF effects to be statistically significant because sample sizes are very large). After taking into account these artifacts, there appears to be no evidence that items on currently used tests function differently i n different racial and gender groups.