The School Age Gender Gap in Reading Achievement: Examining the Influences of Item Format and Intrinsic Reading Motivation

Abstract

The importance of reading competence for both individuals and society underlines the strong need to understand the gender gap in reading achievement. Beyond mean differences in reading comprehension, research has indicated that girls possess specific advantages on constructed‐response items compared with boys of the same reading ability. Moreover, it was shown that differences in intrinsic motivation in the tested domain might affect test scores. Differential item functioning was used to analyze the complex relationships among gender, item format, and intrinsic reading motivation in two samples taken from large‐scale German assessments of reading comprehension (PIRLS 2011 and PISA 2009). In line with prior research, results showed that compared with equally skilled boys, both 10‐ and 15‐year‐old girls performed better on constructed‐response items. Furthermore, findings suggest an advantage of 15‐year‐old but not 10‐year‐old students with high levels of intrinsic reading motivation when responding to constructed‐response items. Results are discussed in relation to the design and interpretation of (large‐scale) assessments, the increasing use of constructed‐response items in new assessments in response to the Common Core State Standards, and gender‐sensitive educational practice.

10 Gutte- og jentelesere i topp og bunn. En utforsking av leserprofiler

“…Tidligere studier har funnet at kjønnsforskjellen i jentenes favør er størst når elevene leser skjønnlitteraere tekster (Solheim & Lundetrae, 2016). I tillegg gjør jentene det ofte bedre enn guttene på oppgaver der de må bruke egne erfaringer og reflektere over det de har lest, spesielt når de må formulere og skrive svaret selv (Lafontaine & Monseur, 2009;Roe & Taube, 2003;Schwabe, McElvany & Trendtel, 2015). Denne typen funn er basert på gjennomsnittsskårer for alle elevene, på tvers av mestringsnivå.…”

Conductas, estrategias y rendimiento en Lectura en Pisa: análisis para el Perú

“…Hacia los 15 años de edad también se hallaron inequidades en el rendimiento lector por factores similares: prácticas culturales en el hogar (por ejemplo, visitas a eventos culturales), rendimiento hacia el final de la primaria, el contexto de enseñanza-aprendizaje, y la selectividad social en las transiciones educativas que se dan en el sistema educativo alemán. En otro estudio más reciente (Schwabe, McElvany y Trendtel, 2014) también en Alemania, se observó un mayor rendimiento lector por parte de los alumnos de 15 años de edad, que se describían altamente motivados hacia la lectura. Si bien se encontró que las niñas mostraron mejores resultados y niveles más altos de motivación intrínseca hacia la lectura, esto último no explicó su ventaja.…”

Lesekompetenzen von Jugendlichen in unterschiedlichen Schulformen: Systematische Vor- und Nachteile bei verschiedenen Antwortformaten in Large-Scale Assessments

“…While there is a huge body of research on DIF in regard to individual (e.g., gender: Schwippert et al 2004;Schwabe et al, 2015) and social (e.g., socioeconomic status: McElvany and Schwabe 2013; Walzebug 2014) characteristics of students, studies on DIF focusing on differences in academic background factors are comparatively rare. Pae (2004) investigated DIF on the English subtest of the 1998 Korean National Entrance Exam for Colleges and Universities for examinees with different academic backgrounds (i.e., Humanities vs. Sciences), using the Item Response Theory Likelihood Ratio approach.…”

“…The existent studies have focused mostly on item content as a source of DIF (Pae 2004;Haberkorn et al 2012). However, item format-as another item feature-has also been shown to be highly relevant in the context of DIF in reading tests (Rodriguez 2002;Lafontaine and Monseur 2009;Taylor and Lee 2012;Schwabe et al 2015). Regarding school tracking, literature discusses mainly three potential sources of differences in mean reading achievement, which might also relate to the emergence of specific strengths and weaknesses of students attending different tracks: (a) individual and social differences in students' preconditions at school entry (Luyten et al 2003), (b) institutional, and/or (c) compositional aspects of the different school tracks (e.g., Becker et al 2012).…”