Abstract
Item response theory and confirmatory factor analysis: Two approaches for testing the psychometric equivalence of translated tests. Translating psychological tests from one language and culture to other languages and cultures is a common practice in cross-cultural research. However, researchers should not assume that the translation is perfectly equivalent to the original source language version; instead of that it is necessary to carry out DIF analysis to test the equivalence of the different versions of the questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Item Response Theory (IRT) models are alternative procedures for the detection of DIF. The objective of this study is to compare the utility of CFA and IRT models for testing the psychometric equivalence of translated tests. The English version of the PSDQ was administered to 986 Australian teenagers, and a translated Spanish version of the questionnaire was administered to 986 Spanish teenagers. CFA with nonzero latent means were carried out to test the equivalence of both versions of the questionnaire; and in the context of IRT Samejima's Graded Response Model was used with the same purpose. The results of this study show that CFA with nonzero latent means allows to identify uniform DIF as well as nonuniform DIF, so the use of AFC is comparable to the use of IRT models.
