The purpose of this study was to examine the differential item functioning (DIF) of verbal ability test items by gender (male vs female) and country (Oman vs the rest of the Gulf countries) using the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) and the Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) methods which will be reflected on the accuracy of the test results. The sample was 2688 students in grades five and six and to achieve the study's objectives, MH was applied using the SPSS program and LRT using the BILOG-MG program. The classification stability coefficient kappa (?) used to know the agreement ratio between the two methods was calculated to detect differential performance. The results using MH showed that 16.7% of items exhibited DIF in relation to gender, and 33.3% regarding country. Additionally, results showed that DIF utilizing LRT was evident for 10% of the items with respect to gender and 30% of to the country. The agreement between the MH approach and LRT for gender was quite high (? = 0.725). The agreement between the MH approach and LRT for the country was also quite high (? = 0.655). The study recommended further study to investigate of the causes of the differential functioning of some items of the verbal ability test.
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