The Measurement Invariance and Latent Mean Differences of Emotion Regulation Strategies Scale for Artistic Creative Activities among Dance Students

The current study tested the validity and reliability of the Korean version of Emotion Regulation Strategies for Artistic Creative Activities Scale (Fancourt et al., 2019). In Study 1, a principal component analysis was conducted to explore the potential factor structure of the 18-item with three-factor Emotion Regulation Strategies Scale on 240 students (120 high school students, 120 college students). In Study 2, confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency analysis, and multi-group analysis were conducted to verify the validity of the measurement model, measurement equivalence, and latent mean differences between groups of 682 students (335 high school students, 347 college students). Results of the principal component analysis showed that the cumulative variance of the 18 items was 74.61%, and the coefficient of Cronbach's α=.939 for all items was very high. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that a four-factor model was the best fit (x²=775.36, df=129, p=.001, TLI=.913, CFI=.936, RMSEA=.076). Validation of measurement equivalence revealed that the factor structures was identical, but the factor coefficients and intercepts were not identical across groups. The latent means of the four subfactors did not differ significantly between two groups. Results suggest that the Korean version of the scale can be used to measure emotion regulation strategies for dancers, and further research should examine the relationship between emotion regulation strategies and its outcomes.