تعصب جنسیتی و اعتبار ساختار در سنجش منافع حرفه ای: عملکرد آیتم تفاضلی در علائق فردی

Item response theory was used to address gender bias in interest measurement. Differential item functioning (DIF) technique, SIBTEST and DIMTEST for dimensionality, were applied to the items of the six General Occupational Theme (GOT) and 25 Basic Interest (BI) scales in the Strong Interest Inventory. A sample of 1860 women and 1105 men was used. The scales were not unidimensional and contain both primary and minor dimensions. Gender-related DIF was detected in two-thirds of the items. Item type (i.e., occupations, activities, school subjects, types of people) did not differ in DIF. A sex-type dimension was found to influence the responses of men and women differently. When the biased items were removed from the GOT scales, gender differences favoring men were reduced in the R and I scales but gender differences favoring women remained in the A and S scales. Implications for the development, validation and use of interest measures are discussed.

Since the pioneering work of Strong (1943), researchers have reported large differences in the vocational interests of men and women. Women tend to express interests that fit their traditional gender role, whereas men express more interests in domains that have been considered masculine (Betz and Fitzgerald, 1987 and Hackett and Lonborg, 1994). Research and debate on the issue of gender differences and possible bias in interest measurement reached a peak in the 1970s (then referred to as sex-bias and fairness see Diamond, 1975 and Tittle and Zytowski, 1978). Much of the debate centered on the Strong Interest Inventory, one of the oldest and most widely used interest measures. The debate resulted in new perspectives and guidelines to reduce bias in interest inventories based on the psychometric knowledge and techniques of the time. After 1980, the sex bias debate seemed to fade away, but as is evident in the major interest inventories used today, a common agreement on how to best resolve gender bias in interest measurement has not been reached (cf. Donnay et al., 2005, Harmon et al., 1994, Holland et al., 1994 and Swaney, 1995). Recent expansion of sophisticated psychometric modeling grounded in item response theory (IRT) has provide new methods to address the issue of bias and fairness (Bolt & Rounds, 2000). These methods and developments in validity theory may also offer new insights into the nature of the construct of vocational interest, especially those factors that differently affect the responses of men and women (Smith, 2002). The purpose of this study is to apply differential item functioning (DIF) techniques, to examine gender bias in items, explore its sources and influence on gender differences detected in the General Occupational Theme (GOT) scales and the Basic Interest (BI) scales of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII).