  Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has
largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as
"gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These
rarely-crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may
not be structurally valid across genders, particularly since many reported
results come from calculus-based courses where 75% or more of the students are
men. We examine the FCI considering both psychometrics and gender
disaggregation (while acknowledging this as a binary simplification), and find
several problematic questions whose removal decreases the apparent gender gap.
We analyze three samples (total $N_{pre}=5,391$, $N_{post}=5,769$) looking for
gender asymmetries using Classical Test Theory, Item Response Theory, and
Differential Item Functioning. The combination of these methods highlights six
items that appear substantially unfair to women and two items biased in favor
of women. No single physical concept or prior experience unifies these
questions, but they are broadly consistent with problematic items identified in
previous research. Removing all significantly gender-unfair items halves the
gender gap in the main sample in this study. We recommend that instructors
using the FCI report the reduced-instrument score as well as the 30-item score,
and that credit or other benefits to students not be assigned using the biased
items.
