The Role of Gender and Field of Study and their Relation to Participants’ Scores in the Ministry of Health Language Exam (MHLE)

The Ministry of Health Language Exam (MHLE) is one of the decisive English language exams which is held nationally and periodically in Iran. This study investigated the role of gender and field of study and their relation to participants’ MHLE scores.

In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, the participants’ performance in one issue of the MHLE exams (held in 2013 and attended by 1777- 799 males and 978 females- examinees) was assessed in terms of gender and field of study (medicine: 406 examinees-30%; paramedicine: 1371 examinees-70%) and their relation to the test scores. The data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and two-way ANOVA.

The female participants (50.07±0.342) significantly outperformed the males (46.08±0.461). In addition, the scores of the medical participants (49.31±0.44) were higher than those of paramedical participants (46.84±0.24) and statistically significant.

Considering the significant impact of gender and field of study on MHLE performance results and in order to prevent possible bias, it is necessary to review participants’ answers to individual items using one of the higher order analysis techniques such as Differential Item Functioning (DIF). This can prevent possible compromised test validity and decisions that are biased towards a particular group of participants in terms of gender and/or field of study.