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Gender fairness within the Force Concept Inventory

Adrienne Traxler, Rachel Henderson, John Stewart, Gay Stewart, Alexis Papak, and Rebecca Lindell
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 14, 010103 – Published 18 January 2018
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Abstract

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 Npre=5391, Npost=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.

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  • Received 1 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010103

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics Education Research

Authors & Affiliations

Adrienne Traxler1,*, Rachel Henderson2, John Stewart2, Gay Stewart2, Alexis Papak3, and Rebecca Lindell4

  • 1Department of Physics, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
  • 4Tiliadal STEM Education Solutions, Lafayette, Indiana 47901, USA

  • *Corresponding author. adrienne.traxler@wright.edu

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Vol. 14, Iss. 1 — January - June 2018

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