Assessing measurement invariance of familism and parental respect across race/ethnicity in adolescents

This study evaluated the measurement equivalence of measures of familism and parental respect in a large and diverse sample of middle school students in Southern California (n？=？5646) using a multiple group confirmatory factor analysis approach.Results showed little evidence of measurement variance across four racial/ethnic groups (African American, Hispanic, Asian, and non-Hispanic White), supporting the continued use of these measures in diverse populations. Some differences between latent variable means were identified – specifically that the Hispanic group and the white group differed on familism.No evidence of invariance was found. However, the item distributions were highly positively skewed, indicating a tendency for youth to endorse the most positive response, which may reduce the reliability of the measures and suggests that refinement is possible.