Known-Groups Validity: 2017 FSSE Measurement Invariance

Abstract

A key assumption of any latent measure (any questionnaire trying to assess an unobservable construct) is that it functions equally across all different groups. In psychometrics this is called measurement invariance and means that members of different groups understand and respond to the scales similarly and that items have the same relationship with the latent measure across groups (Embretson and Reise, 2000). Having ascertained this, data users can confidently assert that differences between groups are actual differences unrelated to any measurement error.