Differential Person Functioning Research And Preliminary Application

Content: The response of the examinees in tests include abundant information which is often ignored because the traditional examination-oriented evaluation only enphasize on the scores of tests. For the items about measuring different areas of content or abilities, the examinees respond in different styles in tests. Through analyzing the responding styles the examinees' degrees of mastering knowledge in different contents or abilities can be found. According to item response theory and factual examination data, meanwhile adopting a new popular method in educational and psychological measurement of measuring discrepancy in the tests of different contents or abilities, three situations are found with the examinees: without showing differential person functioning; showing uniform differential person functioning; showing nonuniform differential person functioning. Most examinees don't appear differential person functioning in practice, while most of the examinees who appear differential person functioning appear uniform differential person functioning. The research of the thesis conclude that differential person functioning has great significance on students' analysis, diagnosis and evaluation.