Examination of the Robustness of the Resilience Scale Using Multigroup Analysis

This study aimed to investigate the factor invariance and robustness of a resilience scale using multigroup analysis to allow for a relative comparison of models. Participants were 2568 high school students (male: 1211, female: 1357) in Japan. They answered the questionnaire about their respective general attributes (gender, grade) and the resilience scale. The resilience scale included 9 items and 3 factors (building relationship, overcome power, and breakthrough strength). To investigate whether the resilience scale responds appropriately to the participants in this study, a separate confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for each gender. After examining the construct validity of the resilience scale, a multigroup analysis was conducted for groups by gender. The multigroup analysis confirmed configural invariance, measurement invariance, weak factorial invariance, and strong factorial invariance. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis for each gender was a good fit. Configural invariance was adopted for multigroup analysis. The validity of interpreting resilience in male and female participants using the same model was established in this study. We expect that the current findings will help interpret gender differences in resilience in the field of mental health