Cross-Ethnic Measurement Equivalence of the RCMAS in Latino and White Youth With Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

We examined the measurement equivalence of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS; Reynolds & Richmond, 1979) in a sample of 667 White and Latino youth with anxiety disorders. Findings supported the factorial invariance of the Physiological Anxiety, Worry/Oversensitivity, and Social Concerns/Concentration subscales as well as the construct validity equivalence of the RCMAS Total Anxiety scale. The RCMAS appears to have measurement equivalence across Latino and White youth.

Notes

^a n = 279.

^b n = 398.

Because we used the robust weighted least squares estimator for the CFAs (Flora & Curran, 2004), we do not report the standardized root mean residual (SRMR) fit index, as the weighted least squares matrix is based on correlations, and therefore, use of SRMR indexes are not relevant for fit evaluation (Bollen & Long, 1993)

² For all invariance analyses, we used tests of the significance of the chi-square difference between nested models and fit indexes of the more constrained model to evaluate the tenability of equivalence constraints. Significant chi-square differences and decrements in constrained model fit indicate between-group variance, or bias, in the parameters of interest. We used three fit indexes to evaluate the relative CFA/SEM model fit: chi-square goodness of fit, comparative fit index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Acceptable model fit is indicated by a nonsignificant chi-square goodness of fit, a CFI above .95 (Hu & Bentler, 1998), and an RMSEA below .08 (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Steiger, 1998). We evaluated model fit on the basis of a majority of fit indexes (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002).

³ Prior to evaluating the cross-ethnic measurement equivalence of the RCMAS, analyses supported the cross-age and cross-sex equivalence of the RCMAS. In addition, measurement invariance across ethnicity, age, and sex was supported for the CDI and FSSC–R with the exception of item intercepts invariance across age for the FSSC–R. Details are available from the A. A. Pina.

*p < .001.