PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Cramer, Jennifer
TI  - A Linguist's Perspective on the American Board of Family Medicine's Differential Item Functioning Panel
AID  - 10.3122/jabfm.2022.02.210350
DP  - 2022 Mar 01
TA  - The Journal of the American Board of Family
                Medicine
PG  - 387--389
VI  - 35
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/35/2/387.short
4100  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/35/2/387.full
SO  - J Am Board Fam Med2022 Mar 01; 35
AB  - As part of their continuing efforts to create higher parity levels in the Family Medicine Certification Examination, the American Board of Family Medicine has established procedures to explore bias in certification examinations by establishing a differential item functioning (DIF) analysis process and panel review. The review panel consists of a diverse group of family physicians and a linguist who is charged with determining whether items from the examination contain bias unrelated to the practice of medicine. It is the objective of this commentary to explain the panel process itself and to promote the inclusion of a linguist in similar panels. I argue that the inclusion of a linguist on a DIF panel can aid in determining where language itself is the source of bias.