"Differences in responding to biodata and situational judgement tests (SJTs) based on gender and racial minority group status were evaluated. It was hypothesized that vocational interests and socioeconomic status (SES) could be used to help characterize the differences in experience between groups (e.g. Cottrell, Newman, Roisman, 2015; Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2012). As a result, interests and SES may help explain differences in both the constructs assessed by biodata and SJTs as well as differences in item functioning (DIF; Drasgow, 1987). Hypotheses were evaluated using multiple-indicator multiple-cause models to simultaneously model latent constructs and item responses (MIMIC; Muthén, 1989). Findings indicate that interests helped explain differences across gender in both the constructs assessed as well as DIF. Interests explained few differences based on minority group status and SES did not seem to meaningfully explain differences in either of the demographic group comparisons. Many items still exhibited DIF as a function of gender or minority group status after accounting for vocational interests and SES, suggesting that further work is needed to identify additional substantive explanations of DIF. Overall, the present work constitutes a thorough examination of differential functioning in noncognitive assessments and establishes a meaningful relationship between the noncognitive constructs assessed here and vocational interests."--Page ii.
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