International large-scale assessment in education aims to compare educational achievement across many countries. Differences between countries in language, culture, and education give rise to differential item functioning (DIF). For many decades, DIF has been regarded as a nuisance and a threat to validity. In this paper, we take a different stance and argue that DIF holds essential information about the differences between countries. To uncover this information, we explore the use of multivariate analysis techniques as ways to analyze DIF emphasizing visualization. PISA 2012 data are used for illustration.

中文翻译：

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从测量的不变性中理解：在国际大规模评估中如何探索教育系统之间的差异

国际教育大规模评估旨在比较许多国家的教育成就。各国之间在语言，文化和教育上的差异导致差异项功能（DIF）。几十年来，DIF被视为是滋扰和对有效性的威胁。在本文中，我们采取不同的立场，认为DIF拥有有关国家之间差异的基本信息。为了揭示这些信息，我们探索了使用多元分析技术作为分析DIF强调可视化的方法。PISA 2012数据用于说明。