Measurement equivalence of extraversion and conscientiousness items and scale across four countries

Abstract

Using IRT and MACS approaches, we examined measurement equivalence of the Extraversion and Conscientious Scales of the Big Five Inventory (BFI) between the US and China, Australia and Spain. The results showed 1-4 items of each scale to have measurement nonequivalence in each pair of comparison, although the effect sizes were not large. The mean differences in Extraversion and Conscientious between the US and the three other countries were consistent with previous findings based on cultural similarity. The study showed the feasibility of administering a personality inventory in English to non-native speakers with English proficiency as an alternative to translation.