There is a heated debate on whether observed gender differences in some figural matrices in adults can be attributed to gender differences in inductive reasoning/G[subscript f] or differential item functioning and/or test bias. Based on previous studies we hypothesized that three specific item design features moderate the effect size of the gender…

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test first- and second-order factor models on cognitive abilities and their invariance across samples of 234 male and 225 female secondary school students. Factor models suggest that males and females may use different problem-solving strategies for spatial analogies, matrices, and numerical problems. (SLD)