Measurement Invariance of Achievement Motives Model: PISA 2018 Turkey Sample

Abstract

This study aims to find out whether the achievement motives model, constructed by attitudes towards competition, motivation to master tasks, and fear of failure scales, has measurement invariance in the PISA 2018 student questionnaire concerning gender and school type in Turkey sample, containing 6442 students. According to the results, the model's fit levels with the data were within acceptable levels across gender groups and school-type groups. Then, the measurement invariance across gender and school type was tested by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis including a sequence of tests of four nested hierarchical models which are configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance. The fit indices of models and the differences of indice values between models were examined to decide whether measurement invariance is established. It is found that the full measurement invariance is met according to gender and school type since the values of the indices for each invariance step are acceptable values. It means that it will be appropriate and meaningful to compare the students based on the scores obtained from the measurement tool within the framework of the achievement motives model.