Measurement problems in terms of different understanding of the meaning, concepts and implications of survey questions as well as tendencies to different response-sets (e.g. acquiescence or social desirability) are reoccurring problems in comparative migration research. Cultural factors, time-varying effects and survey design lead to response biases. It could be shown that depending on the region of origin, migrants tend to extreme or centred responding behaviour. Macroscale changes in attitudes towards disclosure of personal information influence acquiescent biases. Therefore, the question arises whether the presence of measurement equivalence can be assumed, especially within instruments regarding subjective feelings, when comparing migrant and native populations.
The aim of the study is to test for intercultural and longitudinal equivalence of the Health Short Form 12 - items scale (SF -12), trying to answer the question whether this instrument is useful to compare health of migrants and native Germans over time. The study contributes to the ongoing discussion on measurement equivalence of the SF -12 by including variables concerning integration and assimilation, employment, family status and varying types of migration and years since migration to the analysis.
Using a Multiple Group Structural Equation Modelling approach analyzing longitudinal data of the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we test the validity and measurement equivalence (configural, metric and scalar invariance) of the latent construct ‘health’ over time and between (non-)migration groups. In addition, different item functioning can be detected for a series of covariates. The study concludes in recommending a reduced version of the SF-12 to improve the avoidance of measurement artefacts when comparing the health of migrants and native Germans.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:38386 |
| Date | 18 February 2020 |
| Creators | Mayerl, Jochen, Holz, Manuel |
| Publisher | Technische Universität Chemnitz |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:conferenceObject, info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 978-2-9569087-0-8, 10.13140/RG.2.2.29045.12003 |
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