A latent variable approach to listening and reading: testing factorial invariance across two groups of children in the Korean/English Two-Way Immersion Program

Abstract

This study investigated the factorial distinctness of two receptive language skills, reading and listening, and the equivalence of factor structure across two groups using simultaneous multigroup covariance structure analyses. The subjects were two groups of students from grades two, three and four, enrolled in the Korean/English Two-Way Immersion Program in the Los Angeles Unified School District: Korean-American students and non-Korean-American students, all learning Korean as a primary/foreign language. The analyses were based on data from tests of listening and reading in Korean. The results indicate the following: 1) the two receptive skills are factorially separable, 2) a two-factor model with listening and reading factors applies across the two groups of learners, 3) the correlation between the listening and reading factors was high and the same across the two groups, 4) the variation in levels of listening and reading proficiency differed across the groups, 5) with the exception of one listening test task, the degree to which the listening and reading test tasks measured listening and reading ability was the same across the two groups, and 6) the test task type that had the highest factor loadings for both groups was one which presented test takers with a set of passages (listening or reading), each of which was followed by comprehension questions. The study also makes a methodological contribution in that it investigated the nature of the two receptive language skills in a latent variable framework, using simultaneous analyses of two groups of young children, and also demonstrated a way to detect measurement invariance as a critical prerequisite to achieve validity of inferences based on measures.