A Test of the Factor Structure Equivalence of the 50-Item IPIP Five-Factor Model Measure Across Gender and Ethnic Groups

Personality is frequently assessed in research and applied settings, in part due to evidence that scores on measures of the Five-factor model (FFM) of personality show predictive validity for a variety of outcomes. Although researchers are increasingly using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999 Goldberg, L. R. 1999. “A broad-bandwidth, public-domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models”. In Personality psychology in Europe, Edited by: Mervielde, I., Deary, I., De Fruyt, F. and Ostendorf, F. Vol. 7, 7–28. Tilburg, , The Netherlands: Tilburg University Press. Google Scholar; International Personality Item Pool, 2007b International Personality Item Pool. 2007b. A scientific collaboratory for the development of advanced measures of personality traits and other individual differences. Retrieved November 9, 2007, from http://ipip.ori.org/ Google Scholar) FFM measures, investigations of the psychometric properties of these measures are unfortunately sparse. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure equivalence of the 50-item IPIP FFM measure across gender and ethnic groups (i.e., Whites, Latinos, Asian Americans) using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results from a sample of 1,727 college students generally support the invariance of the factor structure across groups, although there was some evidence of differences across gender and ethnic groups for model parameters. We discuss these findings and their implications.