TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the structure and measurement invariance of the multigroup ethnic identity measure in a multiethnic sample of college students
AU - Yap, Stevie C.Y.
AU - Donnellan, M. Brent
AU - Schwartz, Seth J.
AU - Kim, Su Yeong
AU - Castillo, Linda G.
AU - Zamboanga, Byron L.
AU - Weisskirch, Robert S.
AU - Lee, Richard M.
AU - Park, Irene J.K.
AU - Whitbourne, Susan Krauss
AU - Vazsonyi, Alexander T.
PY - 2014/7
Y1 - 2014/7
N2 - In this article, we evaluate the factor structure of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Phinney, 1992) and test whether the MEIM exhibits measurement invariance across ethnic groups taken from a diverse sample of students from 30 different colleges and universities across the United States (N = 9,625). Initial analyses suggested that a bifactor model was an adequate representation of the structure of the MEIM. This model was then used in subsequent invariance tests. Results suggested that the MEIM displayed configural and metric invariance across 5 diverse ethnic groups (i.e., White, Black, Hispanic, East Asian, and South Asian). There were indications that the MEIM displayed a similar factor structure with roughly equivalent factor loadings across diverse ethnic groups. However, there was little evidence of scalar invariance across these groups, suggesting that mean-level comparisons of MEIM scores across ethnic groups should be interpreted with caution. The implications of these findings for the interpretation and use of this popular measure of ethnic identity are discussed.
AB - In this article, we evaluate the factor structure of the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM; Phinney, 1992) and test whether the MEIM exhibits measurement invariance across ethnic groups taken from a diverse sample of students from 30 different colleges and universities across the United States (N = 9,625). Initial analyses suggested that a bifactor model was an adequate representation of the structure of the MEIM. This model was then used in subsequent invariance tests. Results suggested that the MEIM displayed configural and metric invariance across 5 diverse ethnic groups (i.e., White, Black, Hispanic, East Asian, and South Asian). There were indications that the MEIM displayed a similar factor structure with roughly equivalent factor loadings across diverse ethnic groups. However, there was little evidence of scalar invariance across these groups, suggesting that mean-level comparisons of MEIM scores across ethnic groups should be interpreted with caution. The implications of these findings for the interpretation and use of this popular measure of ethnic identity are discussed.
KW - Ethnic identity
KW - Factor structure
KW - MEIM
KW - Measurement invariance
KW - Multigroup ethnic identity measure
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U2 - 10.1037/a0036253
DO - 10.1037/a0036253
M3 - Article
C2 - 24660693
AN - SCOPUS:84904400064
SN - 0022-0167
VL - 61
SP - 437
EP - 446
JO - Journal of Counseling Psychology
JF - Journal of Counseling Psychology
IS - 3
ER -