HOW TO COMPARE MEANS OF LATENT VARIABLES BETWEEN COUNTRIES AND 'RESEARCH WAVES': TESTING FOR INVARIANCE MEASUREMENT. AN APPLICATION USING EASTERN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

• Authors: Comsa Mircea
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Comparative social survey research is exponentially growing, more and more data being available at longitudinal and cross-national levels. When unobservable concepts are involved, the analysis of this kind of data poses the issue of measurement invariance (Are the concepts equivalent across countries and longitudinally?). The aim of this paper is to draw a clear picture of measurement invariance (MI) test via multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) using AMOS 16 software. According to the literature this is a necessary step before latent mean comparison. At first, the author discusses the concept of measurement invariance, and then he presents the most important features and issues related to the MGCFA. The main part of the paper is dedicated to presenting a step by step procedure to test for MI using AMOS VB.NET. In order to facilitate understanding, all steps are logically described; also, data and syntaxes are provided. To illustrate the procedure, the author analyzes the 'sexual permissiveness', as it measured in two large-scale surveys (EVS and WVS). He focuses on the case of those 19 former communist countries included in these surveys, for which the available measurement covers at least three points in time, during the 1990-2009. To measure the 'sexual permissiveness', four items are used: how justifiable are homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, and divorce. Scalar invariance of 'sexual permissiveness' scale is proved for most countries, so means and relationships involving this value can be meaningfully interpreted. Finally, the author discusses some alternatives for presenting the means of latent variables.

Keywords

EN

MEASUREMENT; MULTIPLE-GROUP CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS; SEXUAL PERMISSIVENESS; STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociológia (Sociology)
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 639-669
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Comsa Mircea

• Mircea Comsa, Department of Sociology and Social Work, 'Babes-Bolyai' University of Cluj-Napoca, B-dul 21 Dec. 1989 No. 128, Cluj-Napoca 400604, Romania

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11SKAAAA095327