title: Measurement equivalence of the language-brokering scale for Chinese American adolescents and their parents.
abstract: Language brokering occurs frequently in immigrant families. Using data from 279 Chinese American families with adolescents who function as language brokers for their parents, the current study developed a comprehensive scale to assess adolescents' and their parents' perceptions of language brokering. Both versions, parent and adolescent, showed stable factor structures. We also examined measurement equivalence, including factorial and construct-validity invariance, for each subscale across parent gender, adolescent gender, adolescent nativity, and translation frequency. In general, metric factorial invariance was observed for most subscales across the different groups; these subscales can thus be used in future studies examining the relations between language brokering and other variables. Further, two adolescent subscales (i.e., adolescent-focused burden, positive relations with parents) and three parent subscales (i.e., parent-focused burden, negative feelings, positive relations with child) demonstrated strong factorial invariance consistently across different groups, and can thus be used in future studies examining mean group differences in language-brokering experiences. In terms of construct-validity equivalence, most subscales were associated with parent-child conflict and adolescent depressive symptoms to a similar degree across parent gender, adolescent gender, and nativity. Implications of the current findings and recommendations for future use are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Su Yeong
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Yijie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Georgia State University.
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Weaver
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Yishan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wu-Seibold
authors.affiliation: Commonwealth Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
authors.forename: Cindy H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations / Q000208:ethnology; D007802:Language; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D012647:Self-Assessment; D014175:Translating