Abstract
The purpose of the paper is in-depth analysis of gender differences in Ukrainian student achievement in mathematics and science on TIMSS 2011 results because the average scores similarity hides some significant differences between the achievements of boys and girls. Boys significantly outperform girls in some cognitive and content domains, while the benefit of girls never was significant. The procedure of Differential Item Functioning (DIF) on the basis of the Mantel-Haenszel method was used to test the fairness of assessment. The results show that the set of TIMSS 2011 items does not have any gender bias on Ukrainian students since there are insignificant number of items with large DIF, among which some favouring boys, and some favouring girls. Each of gender groups is equally represented among both stronger and weaker participants. Any significant relationship between the DIF size and the difficulty or type of the item is not detected. But the items in number, physics and earth science, and math problems on applying function in favour of boys. This is likely caused by the fact that in Ukrainian society still there is attitude to such fields of study as masculine.
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