Measuring self-esteem in Spanish adolescents: Equivalence across gender and educational levels

Rosenberg's self-esteem scale (RSES) has been applied in many areas of psychology, highlighting the interest in the study of gender differences and educational level. At the same time, there was a methodological debate on its psychometric properties. Evidence points at a scale measuring a single trait confounded by a method factor associated to negatively worded items. The aim of the study is to examine RSES differences due to gender and educational level at the factor level, while controlling for the presence of method effects, in Spanish students. A completely a priori model was separately tested in four subsamples: college men and women, and high school men and women, and an invariance routine implemented for them. The primary conclusions are that the scale measures equally well in the four samples, and there were no latent mean differences due to gender or educational level. La escala de autoestima de Rosenberg (RSES) se ha empleado en muchas áreas de la psicología, destacando el interés por el estudio de las diferencias de género y de nivel educativo. Paralelamente, ha habido un debate metodológico sobre sus propiedades psicométricas: la evidencia señala que mide un solo rasgo de autoestima, pero confundido con un efecto de método asociado a los ítems invertidos. El objetivo de este estudio es examinar las diferencias en género y nivel educativo de la RSES, controlando por la presencia de efectos de método en estudiantes españoles. Se estimó un modelo completamente a priori en cuatro muestras: estudiantes hombres y mujeres de instituto y de universidad, y se implementó una rutina completa de invarianza factorial. Los principales resultados son que la escala mide de forma adecuada a las cuatro muestras y no hubo diferencias en las medias latentes en función del género o el nivel educativo