DIF in Native Language and Gender Groups in an ESL Placement Test

Abstract

U The relative cultural fairness of educational tests has been a fertile field for researchers. The primary concern of such studies has been tests or test items that behave differently for different native-language, cultural, ethnic, and/or gender groups. These studies are popularly known as test bias studies but the term test bias is misleading and inaccurate. The term assumes that the researcher is examining tests or test items that are biased while what we know from test-taker responses is only that there are differences in performances by different individuals or groups that could be due to several reasons, only one of which is bias. A more accurate term, therefore, that has been used recently in testing literature, is differential item functioning (DIF), referring to the way items function differently for individuals or groups of test takers who have similar abilities. Among the few studies on DIF in the field of second/foreign language testing reported recently are the following: Chen and Henning (1985) examined the Winter 1985 version of the ESL placement examination (ESLPE) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to determine the nature, direction, and extent of bias present for members of the Spanish and the Chinese native language groups; Zeidner (1986, 1987) investigated the English Language Aptitude Test (ELAT) used routinely for student selection and placement in Israel; Spurling (1987) studied the fair use of the Marin Community College English admissions and placement test; Hale (1988) reported on the interaction of student majorfield and text content in the reading comprehension section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL); and Angoff (1989) tested the hypothesis that items of the TOEFL that contain references to people, places, regions, etc., of the U.S. tend to favor test takers who have spent some time living in the United States. Kunnan and Sasaki (1989) extended the Chen and Henning (1985) study by including five native language