Measurement invariance of the Research Attitudes Questionnaire in an age and ethnically diverse, community-dwelling sample

The Research Attitudes Questionnaire (RAQ), developed to predict individuals' willingness to participate, is often used in Alzheimer's Disease and related dementia research. The present investigation aimed to examine the suitability of the RAQ across age groups and three different racialized identities, i.e., to see whether the RAQ showed measurement invariance. We administered the RAQ to six groups of participants: 457 younger and 594 older African Americans, 207 younger and 339 older American Indian/Alaska Native, and 173 younger and 679 older non-Hispanic White adults. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the best-fitting model was one-factor. All six groups fit the model well, with Comparative Fit Indices > 0.95. A series of cross-sample invariance tests using increasing constraints on factor loadings, means, and residuals revealed evidence of configural invariance, metric invariance, and partial scalar invariance. These findings support the suitability of the RAQ for cross-cultural and/or age comparisons of willingness to engage in research in the groups and context studied.