Doennecke Nadine, Brandenburg Janin, Maehler Claudia
University of Hildesheim, Germany.
Technical University Dortmund, Germany.
Infant Behav Dev. 2023 Nov;73:101888. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101888. Epub 2023 Oct 3.
Development tests are widely used in the scope of cross-cultural and comparative research to support intervention studies and health care projects concerning early childhood development. Therefore, it is crucial to use culturally sensitive assessment tools. A culturally adapted version of the German development test FREDI 0-3 (Maehler, Cartschau, & Rohleder, 2016) was used to assess a German (n = 405) and an Indian (n = 2075) sample of children between ten and thirty-two months. Measurement invariance indicates psychometric equivalence of a construct across groups and is a prerequisite for test applications in a cross-cultural setting. Confirmatory factor analyses for single cohorts per age group and multi-group measurement invariance analyses were used to examine the data equivalence of the test across groups. Weak measurement invariance could be established across both groups in all four age groups (10-14; 15-21; 22-26; 27-32 months) suggesting that the development factor was measured in the same way in both groups and accounted similarly for performance differences in the developmental subdomains for the German and the Indian sample. However, scalar and strict measurement invariance were violated in almost all group comparisons suggesting differences in scale difficulty and reliability across the German and the Indian sample. This suggests that a culture-sensitive adaptation process like it was carried out within this project is necessary but not sufficient in order to create a culturally comparable development test. It is essential to always carry out measurement invariance testing to determine the psychometric equivalence of the test and additionally reduce linguistic and cultural bias through an adaption process based on empirical proven methodological principles.
发展测试在跨文化和比较研究领域中被广泛应用，以支持有关幼儿发展的干预研究和医疗保健项目。因此，使用具有文化敏感性的评估工具至关重要。采用了德国发展测试FREDI 0 - 3的文化适应版本（梅勒、卡奇绍和罗勒德，2016年）来评估年龄在10至32个月之间的德国儿童样本（n = 405）和印度儿童样本（n = 2075）。测量不变性表明一个构念在不同群体间的心理测量等价性，是跨文化背景下测试应用的前提条件。对每个年龄组的单队列进行验证性因素分析以及多组测量不变性分析，以检验该测试在不同群体间的数据等价性。在所有四个年龄组（10 - 14；15 - 21；22 - 26；27 - 32个月）的两个群体中都建立了弱测量不变性，这表明两个群体对发展因素的测量方式相同，并且在德国和印度样本的发展子领域中对表现差异的解释也相似。然而，在几乎所有的组间比较中都违反了标量和严格测量不变性，这表明德国和印度样本在量表难度和信度方面存在差异。这表明像本项目中所进行的这种文化敏感的适应过程是必要的，但并不足以创建一个具有文化可比性的发展测试。必须始终进行测量不变性测试，以确定测试的心理测量等价性，并通过基于经验验证的方法原则的适应过程来进一步减少语言和文化偏差。
