<![CDATA[This study aimed to analyze the difficulty levels of items measuring mathematical critical-thinking ability and adversity quotient (AQ), as well as to map students’ abilities according to gender and school type using Wright maps. A quantitative survey design was employed with purposive sampling involving tenth-grade students from senior and vocational high schools. A total of 299 students completed the mathematical critical-thinking test, while 284 students responded to the AQ questionnaire. The mathematical critical-thinking instrument covered interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference indicators, whereas the AQ instrument measured control, origin and ownership, reach, and endurance. Response data were analyzed using the Rasch model in Winsteps, and Wright maps were used to simultaneously display item difficulty and student ability on a common logit scale. The findings showed that inference items had the highest difficulty level, indicating that students experienced considerable difficulty drawing logical and accurate conclusions from mathematical information. In contrast, evaluation items tended to have lower difficulty levels. Within the AQ instrument, several control and reach items were the most difficult to endorse, suggesting that some students still struggled to regulate their responses to academic difficulties and prevent those difficulties from affecting other aspects of learning. Gender-based mapping revealed only minor differences: male students had slightly higher proportions in the high critical-thinking and AQ categories, whereas female students were more concentrated in the moderate categories. Based on school type, senior high school students had higher proportions in the high categories of mathematical critical thinking and AQ, while vocational high school students were predominantly distributed in the moderate categories. These findings demonstrate that Wright maps are useful for diagnosing item difficulty, mapping student ability, and identifying demographic variations. The results can inform the revision of assessment instruments and the development of differentiated and adaptive mathematics instruction that strengthens inference skills, critical reflection, persistence, and students’ responses to academic challenges.]]>
