Testing for Instrument Equivalence across Cultural Groups: Procedures, Issues, and Complexities

Conducting multigroup comparisons assumes that both the item measurements and dimensionality of the underlying construct(s) are group-equivalent. Structural equation modeling (SEM) represents one procedure for testing the validity of these equivalencies. When tests for instrument equivalence involve mono-cultural groups procedures are relatively straightforward. However, when comparative groups under study represent different national cultures, the process is much more complex and becomes increasingly so as the number of cultural groups expands and their socio-geographical roots become more widely divergent.