Exploring plausible causes of differential item functioning in the PISA science assessment: language, curriculum or culture

Abstract

In recent years, large-scale international assessments have been increasingly used to evaluate and compare the quality of education across regions and countries. However, measurement variance between different versions of these assessments often posts threats to the validity of such cross-cultural comparisons. In this study, we investigated the cross-language, cross-cultural validity of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2006 Science assessment via three differential item functioning (DIF) analyses between the USA and Canada, Chinese Hong Kong and mainland China, and between the USA and mainland China. Furthermore, we explored three plausible causes of DIF via content analysi..