TY - JOUR T1 - A Linguist's Perspective on the American Board of Family Medicine's Differential Item Functioning Panel JF - The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine JO - J Am Board Fam Med SP - 387 LP - 389 DO - 10.3122/jabfm.2022.02.210350 VL - 35 IS - 2 AU - Jennifer Cramer Y1 - 2022/03/01 UR - http://www.jabfm.org/content/35/2/387.abstract N2 - 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. ER -