Differential Functioning of the Chinese Version of Beck Depression Inventory-II in Adolescent Gender Groups: Use of a Multiple-Group Mean and Covariance Structure Model

The objectives of this study were (a) to investigate whether items of the Chinese version of Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II-C; Chinese Behavioral Science Corporation in Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Chinese]. The Chinese Behavioral Science Corporation, Taiwan, 2000) exhibited DIF across adolescent gender groups, in addition to exploring meaningful patterns of item content by gender and (b) to methodologically show how detecting DIF can be done by utilizing a well-known factor-analysis method—a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis with mean and covariance structure (MACS; Sörbom in Br J Math Stat Psychol 27: 229–239, 1974; Sörbom in Structural equation models with structured means. North Holland, Amsterdam, pp 183–195, 1982). Two samples composed of 1,344 adolescent males and 1,578 adolescent females were analyzed. One nonuniform DIF item and seven uniform DIF items were identified across gender groups. The effects of DIF were inconsequential on the raw scores but significant on the latent mean. In regard to the patterns of item content by gender, the results have found that females were relatively more likely to endorse the item contents reflecting negative self-evaluation (item 7: self-dislike), emotional vulnerability (item 9: suicidal wishes; item 10: crying) and irritation (item 17); whereas males were relatively more likely to endorse the item contents associated with frustration (item 3: failure), moodiness (item 4: loss of pleasure) and somatic habits (item 16: sleep pattern). Also, the universal and culturally specific influences on DIF items across gender groups were suspected.