Do reading passages about war provide factorially invariant scores for menand women?

In this study, we investigated the factorial invariance of male and female student scores when reading comprehension was assessed with narrative and e xpository passages. The expository passage concerned the Civil War and was of special interest because item bias research has suggested that war and m ilitary content disadvantage women. Confirmatory factor analysis was used t o assess the fit of the data for both genders to several factor models, and then to investigate several levels of invariance. Fit indexes supported me asurement invariance across the genders for narrative and expository scores . Specifically, the narrative and expository item factor loadings and inter cepts were invariant for both genders. In addition, invariance across both genders was shown for the expository factor variances and means. These resu lts support the continued use of passages about war for reading comprehensi on assessments. However, further research with different reading assessment s and factorial structures needs to verify these results as well as to inve stigate the differences across the genders for most narrative item error va riances.