Measuring environmental concern through international surveys: A study of cross-cultural equivalence with item response theory and confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract

This article explores the cross-cultural equivalence of two composite measures of environmental concern derived from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP): the pro-environmental views scale (PEVS) and the environmental awareness scale (EAS). Item response theory and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis were employed to evaluate comprehensively the target measures while focusing on a concrete cross-cultural comparison between Taiwan and the UK. The results indicated that both measures show nonequivalence to different extents. The PEVS presents substantial problems of validity in Taiwan, whereas in the UK it is a meaningful unidimensional measure if one item is excluded. Difficulties with construct equivalence, translation, and method bias were identified as potential causes of the scale's nonequivalence. The EAS is a suitable measure within both cultures, but it is affected by the cumulative effect of differential item functioning (DIF) that makes the comparison of group means imprecise. Taiwanese respondents' salient tendency to endorse higher response categories than expected for their latent levels of EA was determined as a potential cause of DIF, which may be related to bias induced by the response categories' labels. Above all, this study reminds the importance of examining carefully the measurements employed in cross-cultural research to avoid reporting findings that could be potentially misleading.