Identifying Cultural Differences in Items and Traits

Abstract

The authors investigated the cross-cultural measurement equivalence of items in the English-language version of the NEO Personality Inventory, a measure of the five-factor personality model, in a different cultural context in which English is a language of instruction. The item responses of 432 Filipino and 610 American college students were analyzed. Three methods for detecting differential item functioning (DIF)-two based on item response theory-plus the Mantel-Haenszel method showed fairly good agreement in the detection of DIF items. Nearly 40% of the 180 items showed DIF. Several significant cultural mean differences that were found with the original raw scores were no longer significant when the authors analyzed "purified" scales obtained by deleting DIF items.