Title: Gender Differences in Item Nonresponse in the PISA 2018 Student Questionnaire
Abstract: Previous research suggests that male students omit fewer items on a test than female students. These findings hold for both high- but also low-stakes achievement tests such as International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSA) in education. Considerably less research focuses on gender differences in item nonresponse in the ILSA student questionnaires. In fields outside of education, an inverse relationship is often observed with men omitting more questionnaire items than women. However, the relevance of these findings to the ILSA questionnaires remains unclear. Using a mixed modelling framework, the proposed study relates gender and item nonresponse on the student questionnaire across 80 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018. The findings may (1) provide a deeper understanding of validity issues that the ILSA surveys face, (2) map out strategies for secondary analysis, and (3) inform future ILSA design.