Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2012 Apr;40(3):353-67. doi: 10.1007/s10802-011-9569-4.
As research continues to document differences in the prevalence of mental health problems such as depression across racial/ethnic groups, the issue of measurement equivalence becomes increasingly important to address. The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ) is a widely used screening tool for child and adolescent depression. This study applied a differential item functioning (DIF) framework to data from a sample of 6th and 8th grade students in the Seattle Public School District (N = 3,593) to investigate the measurement equivalence of the MFQ. Several items in the MFQ were found to have DIF, but this DIF was associated with negligible individual- or group-level impact. These results suggest that differences in MFQ scores across groups are unlikely to be caused by measurement non-equivalence.
随着研究不断记录到不同种族/族裔群体中抑郁等心理健康问题的流行率存在差异,测量等效性问题变得越来越重要。情绪和感觉问卷(MFQ)是一种广泛用于筛查儿童和青少年抑郁的工具。本研究采用差异项目功能(DIF)框架,对西雅图公立学区的六年级和八年级学生样本(N=3593)的数据进行了分析,以调查 MFQ 的测量等效性。MFQ 的几个项目被发现存在 DIF,但这种 DIF 与个体或群体水平的影响微不足道。这些结果表明,群体之间 MFQ 分数的差异不太可能是由于测量不等效引起的。