ERIC Number: EJ1300358
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Aug
Pages: 35
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1076-9986
EISSN: N/A
Ordinal Approaches to Decomposing Between-Group Test Score Disparities
Quinn, David M.; Ho, Andrew D.
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, v46 n4 p466-500 Aug 2021
The estimation of test score "gaps" and gap trends plays an important role in monitoring educational inequality. Researchers decompose gaps and gap changes into within- and between-school portions to generate evidence on the role schools play in shaping these inequalities. However, existing decomposition methods assume an equal-interval test scale and are a poor fit to coarsened data such as proficiency categories. This leaves many potential data sources ill-suited for decomposition applications. We develop two decomposition approaches that overcome these limitations: an extension of V, an ordinal gap statistic, and an extension of ordered probit models. Simulations show V decompositions have negligible bias with small within-school samples. Ordered probit decompositions have negligible bias with large within-school samples but more serious bias with small within-school samples. More broadly, our methods enable analysts to (1) decompose the difference between two groups on any ordinal outcome into portions within- and between some third categorical variable and (2) estimate scale-invariant between-group differences that adjust for a categorical covariate.
Descriptors: Scores, Tests, Achievement Gap, Equal Education, Test Bias, Computation, Simulation, Racial Differences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
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Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A