Measurement invariance testing for the United States identity scale (USIS) across non-hispanic black and white college students

Abstract

The increasing ethnic and racial diversity within the United States has led to questions regarding what it means to be American. Recently, the United States Identity Scale (USIS) was developed and validated with a sample of Latino/a college students. However, the USIS requires the establishment of measurement invariance before it can be widely used. The purpose of the current study was to establish measurement invariance of the United States Identity Scale (USIS) across non-Hispanic Black and White college students. The sample consisted of 616 college students (76.4% female: Mage = 21.41) from a large, minority-serving university in the Southeast. Results demonstrated negligible metric and scalar measurement nonequivalence providing support for measurement invariance of the USIS across non-Hispanic Black and White students. Additionally, although the majority of associations between U.S. identity process and ethnic identity were invariant, some associations did vary across Black and White students. Similarly, many of the associations between U.S. identity process and ethnic-racial identity with mental health outcomes were invariant, but some did vary across Black and White students. These findings highlight complex associations between ethnic and U.S. identity dimensions and their associations with mental health outcomes. The current study provides further support for the utility of the USIS across non-Hispanic Black and White college students.