Gender-Based Measurement Invariance of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents

The aim of this study was to evaluate the measurement invariance of the Chinese version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA; Gullone and Taffe (Psychological Assessment, 24(2), 409–417, 2011)) across gender. A total of 1388 Chinese adolescents (48.1% males), ranging in age from 11 to 16 years (M = 12.9, SD = 1.09) were recruited from four Chinese middle schools and completed the ERQ-CA. The Cronbach’s α values, omega coefficients, and item-total correlations for the two subscales of the ERQ-CA indicated adequate internal consistency reliability. The results of confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis revealed that all configural, metric, scalar, and partial strict invariance models provided acceptable fit to the data. The result of latent means analysis demonstrated statistically non-significant differences between boys and girls. In conclusion, these findings suggest that the ERQ-CA displays appropriate measurement invariance across gender for Chinese youth of ages 11 to 16.