Do Major Field of Study and Cultural Familiarity Affect TOEFL® iBT Reading Performance? A Confirmatory Approach to Differential Item Functioning

摘要

The TOEFL® iBT has increased the length of each reading passage to better approximate academic reading at North American universities, resulting in a reduction in the number of passages on the reading section of the test. One of the concerns brought about by this change is whether the decrease in topic variety increases the likelihood that an examinee's familiarity with the content of a given passage will influence the examinee's reading performance. This study investigated differential item functioning and differential bundle functioning for six TOEFL® iBT reading passages (N = 8,692), three involving physical science and three involving cultural topics. The majority of items displayed little or no DIF. When all of the items in a passage were examined, none of the passages showed differential functioning at the passage level. Hypotheses are provided for the DIF occurrences. Implications on fairness issues in test development are also discussed.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08957347.2011.580645