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Examining a Key Measure of Youth Disclosure to Parents for Measurement Invariance Across Time and Reporters

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Abstract

Youth disclosure (to parents) is an important factor in assessing parental knowledge and can be defined as the frequency with which adolescents share information about their daily activities. Unfortunately, measurement invariance (across time and reporter) is rarely reported in the literature for measures of youth disclosure, even though it is important to establish at least strong invariance before proceeding to further analyses where means are compared. Measurement invariance was examined across three time points (child ages 11, 14, and 17) and across reporter (youth report of disclosure to mother/father, maternal/paternal report of youth disclosure) for one of the primary measures of youth disclosure. The sample consisted of 335 families (youth, mother, father) from an urban center in the northwestern United States, with adolescent respondents being a primarily European American, middle-income sample of approximately equal numbers of boys and girls (51.6% female). Structural equation modeling was utilized to verify weak, strong and strict measurement invariance. Strong invariance was demonstrated in several instances across two time points (e.g., ages 11 and 14) but there was no evidence of strong invariance across the three time points, regardless of reporter. Implications for youth disclosure theory and construct development are discussed.

Highlights

  • Measurement invariance is rarely reported for measures of youth disclosure.

  • Strong invariance was demonstrated in several instances across two time points.

  • No evidence of strong invariance was found across the three time points.

  • Further theoretical work is needed to improve this measure of youth disclosure.

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Data Availability

Data is not available at this time as additional studies are in preparation.

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Funding

Received from donors; the School of Family Life; the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences; and other entities at Brigham Young University.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Robb E. Clawson, Roy A. Bean

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mountain View Family Counseling, Pleasant Grove, UT, 84062, USA

    Robb E. Clawson

  2. School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, 257 TLRB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Roy A. Bean, Angela B. Bradford & Shayne R. Anderson

  3. Religious Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    W. Justin Dyer

  4. Institute for Child and Family Well-Being, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2400 E. Hartford Ave., Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA

    Chien-Ti Plummer Lee

Authors
  1. Robb E. Clawson
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  2. Roy A. Bean
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  4. Angela B. Bradford
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  6. Chien-Ti Plummer Lee
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Robb Clawson, Roy Bean and Justin Dyer. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Robb Clawson and Roy Bean and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roy A. Bean.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics Approval

The questionnaire and methodology for this study was approved by the Human Subjects Review Board of Brigham Young University (F 060311).

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Informed consent was obtained from all project participants (adults and children).

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Clawson, R.E., Bean, R.A., Justin Dyer, W. et al. Examining a Key Measure of Youth Disclosure to Parents for Measurement Invariance Across Time and Reporters. J Child Fam Stud 32, 1765–1775 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02388-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02388-w

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