The Parent Version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
Omega as an Alternative to Alpha and a Test for Measurement Invariance
Abstract
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a widely used screening instrument for child psychopathology. Many studies have consistently reported rather low α values for certain subscales for the SDQ parent version. Further, the factor structure has not been tested frequently by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA); research into measurement invariance is even scarcer. Therefore, this study evaluates the internal reliability and tests for measurement invariance for the SDQ parent version. In a Dutch sample of 1,484 children we examined reliability by using coefficient ω and tested for invariance across several subgroups. Also, we conducted CFA to examine the five-factor structure of the SDQ. ω yielded higher values than α did, which supports the use of ω in a SEM-based framework. Support for measurement invariance was found on the configural, metric, and scalar level, and as expected, the five-factor structure was confirmed. Scholars are advised to consider ω as an alternative to α, seeing that various problems with α have been discussed. Support for measurement invariance was found for several demographic variables, so that meaningful group comparisons can now be made for the SDQ parent version.
References
2001). Manual for ASEBA School-Age Forms and Profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families.
(1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
. (2006). Psychopathological screening of children with ADHD: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a pan-European study. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 15, 56–62.
. (2004). Validation of the parent and teacher SDQ in a clinical sample. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13(Suppl. 2), 11–16.
(1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 238–246.
(2009). Alpha, dimension-free and model-based internal consistency reliability. Psychometrika, 74, 137–143.
(1990). On the equivalence of factors and components. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 25, 67–74.
(1998). Structural equation modeling with Lisrel, Prelis, and Simplis: Basic concepts, applications, and programming. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2002). Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 9, 233–255.
(2003). Prevalence and development of psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 837–844.
(1986). Introduction to classical and modern test theory. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
(2007). Maternal and paternal age and risk of autism spectrum disorders. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161, 334–340.
(2008). The validity, reliability and normative scores of the parent, teacher and self report versions of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in China. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 2. Retrieved from www.capmh.com/content/2/1/8
(2009). Effects of phone versus mail surveys on the measurement of health related quality of life and emotional and behavioral problems in adolescents. BMC Public Health, 9, 491. doi:10.1186/1471–2458–9–491
(2006). Nonnormal and categorical data in Structural Equation Modeling. In , Structural equation modeling: A second course (pp. 269–314). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
(2003). The British child and adolescent mental health survey 1999: The prevalence of DSM-IV disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1203–1211.
(2002). Detecting emotional and behavioral problems in pediatric clinics. Child: Care, Health and Development, 29, 141–149.
(1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581–586.
(2001). Psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337–1345.
(2009). Commentary on coefficient α: A cautionary tale. Psychometrika, 74, 121–135.
(2004). Australian data and psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 38, 644–651.
(2009). Efficacy of smoking prevention program “Smoke-Free Kids”: Study protocol of a randomized controlled trial. BMC Public Health, 9, 477. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-9-477
(2007). An examination of the convergent and discriminant validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. School Psychology Quarterly, 22, 380–406.
(1990). Children at risk: I. Risk factors and child symptomatology. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 51–59.
(2006). Validation. In , Educational measurement (4th ed., pp. 17–64). Westport, CT: Praeger.
(2005). Teacher ratings of mental health among school children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 208–215.
(2011). Testing measurement invariance: A comparison of multiple-group categorical CFA and IRT. Structural Equation Modeling, 18, 212–228.
(2004). In search of golden rules: Comment on hypothesis testing approaches to setting cutoff values for fit indexes and dangers in overgeneralizing Hu and Bentler (1999) findings. Structural Equation Modeling, 11, 320–341.
(1978). Generalizability in factorable domains: Domain validity and generalizability. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 38, 75–79.
(1999). Test theory: A unified treatment. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2003). Mental health of children and adolescents in Great Britain. International Review of Psychiatry, 15, 185–187.
(1993). Measurement invariance, factor analysis and factorial invariance. Psychometrika, 58, 525–543.
(2003). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): Further evidence for its reliability and validity in a community sample of Dutch children and adolescents. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 12, 1–8.
(1984). A general structural equation model with dichotomous, ordered categorical and continuous latent variable indicators. Psychometrika, 49, 115–132.
(1998–2007). Mplus user’s guide (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
(2007). Examining the Structural Validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in a U. S. sample of custodial grandmothers. Psychological Assessment, 19, 189–198.
(2009). Coefficients alpha, beta, omega, and the GLB: Comments on Sijtsma. Psychometrika, 74, 145–154.
(2003). Collecting behavioral data using the World Wide Web: Considerations for researchers. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 57, 68–73.
(2008). Psychometric properties of the Parent Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the general population of German children and adolescents: Results of the BELLA study. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 17(Suppl. 1), 99–105.
. (2009). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the Bergen Child Study: A conceptually and methodically motivated structural analysis. Psychological Assessment, 21, 352–364.
(2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Test of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods of Psychological Research – Online, 8(2), 23–74.
(1996). Uses and abuses of coefficient α. Psychological Assessment, 8, 350–353.
(2009). On the use, the misuse, and very limited usefulness of Cronbach’s α. Psychometrika, 74, 107–120.
(1999). Psychometric properties of a Swedish version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 8, 63–70.
(1998). Assessing measurement invariance in cross-national consumer research. The Journal of Consumer Research, 25, 78–90.
(2010). Psychometric properties for the parent and teacher version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for 4–12-year-olds: A review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 13, 254–274.
(2000). A review and synthesis of the Measurement Invariance Literature: Suggestions, practices and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 3, 4–69.
(2006). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a community sample of young children in Flanders. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 22, 189–197.
(2008). Construct validity of the five-factor Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in pre-, early, and late adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 1304–1312.
(2003). Dutch version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 12, 281–289.
(2005). Cronbach’s α, Revelle’s β, and McDonald’s ωh: Their relations with each other and two alternative conceptualizations of reliability. Psychometrica, 70, 1–11.
(2010). Teacher ratings of children’s behavior problems and functional impairment across gender and ethnicity: Construct equivalence of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42, 466. doi: 10.1177/0022022110362752
(