Recent Methods for the Study of Measurement Invariance With Many Groups Alignment and Random Effects

• Published in: Sociological methods & research Vol. 47; no. 4; pp. 637 - 664
• Main Authors: Muthén, Bengt, Asparouhov, Tihomir
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2018
• Subjects: Bayesian Statistics; Factor Analysis; Foreign Countries; Groups; Item Response Theory; Maximum Likelihood Statistics; Measurement; Statistical Analysis; factor analysis; random slopes; random intercepts; item response theory; scalar invariance; configural invariance

This article reviews and compares recently proposed factor analytic and item response theory approaches to the study of invariance across groups. Two methods are described and contrasted. The alignment method considers the groups as a fixed mode of variation, while the random-intercept, random-loadi...