The Impact of Gender, Item Format, And Skill Areas on Performance of Iranian English Learner’s Achievement Score

This study aims to find out the impact of gender, item format, and skill areas on Iranian EFL learners’ language achievement tests and also the extent to which males’ and females’ scores vary according to item format or skill areas. The findings of this study might help resolve the inconclusiveness in the literature by either strengthening the idea of female dominance in language learning or by confirming the literature that emphasizes the variation resulting from individual differences other than gender. At the local level, it is expected that the results of the study may help test writers develop tests free of gender bias and predict potential challenges that may be encountered by either group. The sample population of this study is pre-intermediate students of Nima language institute. After being taught the main course book their results on achievement test was analyzed. The data analysis was done in several steps, independent samples T-test and two-way ANOVA test were used to answer the research questions. According to the results, gender does not have a significant effect on the total scores of the students; however, there is a significant main effect of both item format and skill areas on the students’ scores influencing their success in the test. There is also an interaction effect between gender and item format and gender and skill areas, when these two variables interact, they do affect the scores students receive from different skill areas.