Confirmatory factor analysis was applied in a test of alternative factor models and measurement invariance across gender groups using data from the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ). Mothers rated their 10- to 14-year-old children (116 girls and 115 boys) on the EATQ Shyness, High-Intensity Pleasure, Activity Level, Attention, Irritability, and Fear scales. A first-order six-correlated factor model best represented the structure of temperament. As expected, factor models based on composite indicators showed better overall model fit than did those based on single items. The measurement invariance of the first-order model across gender suggests that the EATQ measures the same aspects of temperament regardless of gender. A significant gender difference emerged at the latent mean level: Boys were rated high in high-intensity pleasure and activity level, and girls were rated high in attention.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1984). The effects of sampling error on convergence, improper solutions, and goodness-of-fit indices for maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. Psychometrika, 49, 155-173.
2.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). A general approach to representing multifaceted personality constructs: Application to state self-esteem. Structural Equation Modeling, 1, 35-67.
3.
Bates, J. E. (1989). Concepts and measures of temperament. In G. A. Kohnstamm, J. E. Bates, & M. K. Rothbart (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 3-26). New York: Wiley.
4.
Benson, J. (1998). Developing a strong program of construct validation: A test anxiety example. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 17, 10-17.
5.
Bentler, P. (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 238-246.
6.
Bentler, P., & Bonett, D. (1980). Significance tests and goodness-of-fit in analysis of covariance structure. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 588-600.
7.
Bollen, K. A. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York: Wiley.
8.
Browne, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K. A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136-162). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
9.
Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (1975). A temperament theory of personality development. New York: Wiley.
10.
Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (1984). Temperament: Early developing personality traits. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum.
11.
Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (1986). The EAS approach to temperament. In R. Plomin & J. Dunn (Eds.), The study of temperament: Changes, continuities, and challenges (pp. 67-79). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
12.
Byrne, B. M., Shavelson, R. J., & Muthén, B. (1989). Testing for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structure: The issue of partial measurement invariance. Psychological Bulletin, 105, 456-466.
13.
Cameron, J. R., Hansen, R., & Rosen, D. (1989). Preventing behavioral problems in infancy through temperament assessment and parental support programs. In W. B. Carey & S. C. McDevitt (Eds.), Clinical and educational applications of temperament research (pp. 155-165). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
14.
Cameron, J. R., Rice, D. C., Hansen, R., & Rosen, D. (1994). Developing temperament guidance programs within pediatric practice. In W. B. Carey & S. C. McDevitt (Eds.), Prevention and early intervention: Individual differences as risk factors for the mental health of children: A festschrift for Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas (pp. 226-234). New York: Brunner/Mazel.
15.
Campos, J. J., Barrett, K., Lamb, M. E., Goldsmith, H. H., & Stenberg, C. (1983). Socioemotional development. In M. M. Haith & J. J. Campos (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (4th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 783-915). New York: Wiley.
16.
Capaldi, D. M., & Rothbart, M. K. (1992). Development and validation of an early adolescent temperament measure. Journal of Early Adolescence, 12, 153-173.
17.
Carey, W. B., & McDevitt, S. C. (1978). Stability and change in individual temperament diagnoses from infancy to early childhood. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 17, 331-337.
18.
Cattell, R. B. (1956). Validation and intensification of the Sixteen Personality Factor questionnaires. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 12, 205-214.
19.
Chau, H., & Hocevar, D. (1995, April). The effect of number of measured variables on goodness-of-fit in confirmatory factor analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
20.
Cohen, P., Cohen, J., Teresi, J., Marchi, M., & Velez, C. N. (1990). Problems in the measurement of latent variables in structural equations causal models. Applied Psychological Measurement, 14, 183-196.
21.
Comrey, A. L. (1973). A first course in factor analysis. New York: Academic Press.
22.
Crockenberg, S. B., & Acredolo, C. (1983). Infant temperament ratings: A function of infants, of mothers, or both? Infant Behavior and Development, 6, 61-72.
23.
Derryberry, D., & Rothbart, M. K. (1988). Arousal, affect, and attention as components of temperament. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 958-966.
24.
Dunn, J., & Kendrick, C. (1980). Studying temperament and parent-child interaction: Comparison of interview and direct observation. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 22, 484-496.
25.
Eaton, W., & Yu, A. (1989). Are sex differences in activity level a function of sex differences in maturational status? Child Development, 60, 1005-1011.
26.
Floyd, F. J., & Widaman, K. F. (1995). Factor analysis in the development and refinement of clinical assessment instruments, Psychological Assessment, 7, 286-299.
27.
Fornell, C. (1983). Issues in the application of covariance structure analysis: A comment. Journal of Consumer Research, 9, 443-448.
28.
Gesell, A. (1928). Infancy and human growth. New York: Macmillan.
29.
Goldman, M. S., Greenbaum, P. E., & Darkes, J. (1997). A confirmatory test of hierarchical expectancy structure and predictive power: Discriminant validation of the Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire. Psychological Assessment, 9, 145-157.
30.
Gribbons, B. C., & Hocevar, D. (1998). Levels of aggregation in higher level confirmatory factor analysis: Application for academic self-concept. Structural Equation Modeling, 5, 377-390.
31.
Hagekull, B. (1989). Longitudinal stability of temperament within a behavioral style framework. In G. A. Kohnstamm & J. E. Bates (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 283-297). New York: Wiley.
32.
Hagekull, B., & Bohlin, G. (1986). Mother-infant interaction and perceived infant temperament. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 9, 297-313.
33.
Hall, R. J., Snell, A. F., & Foust, M. S. (1999). Item parceling strategies in SEM: Investigating the subtle effects of unmodeled secondary constructs. Organizational Research Methods, 2, 233-256.
34.
Hsu, C., Soong, W., Stigler, J. W., Hong, C., & Liang, C. (1981). The temperamental characteristics of Chinese babies. Child Development, 52, 1337-1340.
35.
Joormann, J., & Stöber, J. (1997). Measuring facets of worry: A LISREL analysis of the worry domains questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 23, 827-837.
36.
Jöreskog, K. G. (1971). Simultaneous factor analysis in several populations. Psychometrika, 36, 409-426.
37.
Jöreskog, K. G. (1979). Basic ideas of factor and component analysis. In K. Jöreskog & D. Sörbom (Eds.), Advances in factor analysis and structural equation models (pp. 5-20). Cambridge, MA: ABT.
38.
Jöreskog, K. G., & Sörbom, D. (1999). LISREL (version 8.30) [Computer software]. Mooresville, IN: Scientific Software.
39.
Kagan, J. (1994). Galen's prophecy: Temperament in human nature. New York: Basic Books.
40.
Katainen, S., Räikkönen, K., & Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (1998). Development of temperament: Children's temperament and the mother's childrearing attitudes as predictors of adolescent temperament in a 9-year follow-up study. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8, 485-509.
41.
Kim, S. (2002, April). Assessing the construct validity of the early adolescent temperament questionnaire: A multitrait-multimethod analysis. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, LA.
42.
Kim, S., & Hagtvet, K. A. (2003). The impact of misspecified item parceling on representing latent variables in covariance structure modeling: A simulation study. Structural Equation Modeling, 10, 101-127.
43.
Kishton, J. M., & Starrett, R. H. (1983). Parcel factoring of Loevinger's ego development measure. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA.
44.
Kishton, J. M., & Widaman, K. F. (1994). Unidimensional versus domain representative parceling of questionnaire items: An empirical example. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 54, 757-765.
45.
Kohnstamm, G. A. (1989). Temperament in childhood: Cross-cultural and sex differences. In G. A. Kohnstamm, J. E. Bates, & M. K. Rothbart (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 483-508). New York: Wiley.
46.
Lee, Y., & Chen, Y. (1998). The temperamental characteristics of Chinese adolescents in Taiwan. Journal of Adolescence, 21, 337-340.
47.
Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (1983). Temperament and adaptation across life: Theoretical and empirical issues. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim, Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 5, pp. 197-231). New York: Academic Press.
48.
MacCallum, R. C., Browne, R. C., & Sugawara, H. M. (1996). Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods, 1, 130-149.
49.
Maccoby, E. E., & Jacklin, C. M. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
50.
Marsh, H. W. (1987). The hierarchical structure of self-concept and the application of hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Educational Measurement, 27, 17-39.
51.
Marsh, H. W., Antill, J. K., & Cunningham, J. D. (1989). Masculinity, femininity, and androgyny: Bipolar and independent constructs. Journal of Personality, 57, 625-663.
52.
Marsh, H. W., & Hocevar, D. (1985). Application of confirmatory factor analysis to the study of self-concept: First- and higher-order factor models and their invariance across groups. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 542-582.
53.
Maziade, M., Boudreault, M., Thivierge, J., Capera, P., & Cote, R. (1984). Infant temperament: SES and gender differences and reliability of measurement in a large Quebec sample. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 30, 213-226.
54.
McDonald, R. P. (1981). The dimensionality of tests and items. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 34, 100-117.
55.
Minton, C., Kagan, J., & Levine, J. (1971). Maternal control and obedience in the two-year-old. Child Development, 42, 1873-1894.
56.
Nasser, F., Takahashi, T., & Benson, J. (1997). The structure of test anxiety in Israeli-Arab high school students: An application of confirmatory factor analysis with miniscales. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 10, 129-151.
57.
Ostergren, C. S. (1997). Differential utility of temperament-based guidance materials for parents of infants. Family Relations, 46, 63-71.
58.
Pederson, F., & Bell, R. (1970). Sex differences in preschool children without histories of complications of pregnancy and delivery. Developmental Psychology, 3, 10-15.
59.
Pedlow, R., Sanson, A., Prior, M., & Oberklaid, F. (1993). Stability of maternally reported temperament from infancy to 8 years. Developmental Psychology, 29, 998-1007.
60.
Prior, M. (1992). Childhood temperament. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 249-279.
61.
Rindskoph, D., & Rose, T. (1988). Some theory and applications of confirmatory second-order factor analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 23, 51-67.
62.
Rothbart, M. K., & Ahadi, S. A. (1994). Temperament and the development of personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 55-66.
63.
Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (1998). Temperament. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 105-176). New York: Wiley.
64.
Rothbart, M. K., & Derryberry, D. (1981). Development of individual differences in temperament. In M. E. Lamb & A. L. Brown (Eds.), Advances in developmental psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 37-86). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
65.
Rutter, M., & Garmezy, N. (1983). Developmental psychopathology. In P. H. Mussen (Series Ed.) and E. M. Hetherington (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (4th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 775-911). New York: Wiley.
66.
Scheier, L. M., Casten, R. J., & Fullard, W. (1995). Latent-variables confirmatory factor analysis of the Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire. Journal of Adolescent Research, 10, 246-277.
67.
Smith, P., & Dalgleish, L. (1977). Sex differences in parent and infant behavior in the home. Child Development, 48, 1250-1254.
68.
Takahashi, T., & Nasser, F. (1996, April). The impact of using item parcels on ad hoc goodness of fit indices in confirmatory factor analysis: An empirical example. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.
69.
Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
70.
Thomas, A., Chess, S., Birch, H. G., Herzog, M., & Korn, S. (1963). Behavioral individuality in early childhood. New York: New York University Press.
71.
Turecki, S. (1989). The difficult child center. In W. B. Carey & S. C. McDevitt (Eds.), Clinical and educational applications of temperament research (pp. 141-153). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
72.
West, S. G., Finch, J. F., & Curran, P. J. (1995). Structural equation modeling with nonnormal variables: Problems and remedies. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 56-75). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
73.
Windle, M. (1992). Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey (DOTS-R): Simultaneous group confirmatory factor analysis for adolescent gender groups. Psychological Assessment, 4, 228-234.
74.
Windle, M., & Lerner, R. M. (1986). Reassessing the dimensions of temperamental individuality across the life span: The Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey (DOTS-R). Journal of Adolescent Research, 1, 213-230.
