Longitudinal measurement invariance of the Child Problematic Trait Inventory in older Chinese children

Authors

Jie Luo, Guizhou Normal University
Xuetong Wong, Guangzhou University
Meng-Cheng Wang, Guangzhou University
Xintong Zhang, Guangzhou University
Jiaxin Deng, Guangzhou University
Chuxian Zhong, Guangzhou University
Yu Gao, CUNY Brooklyn College
Shi-san Qi, Inner Mongolia Normal University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-3-2019

Abstract

The Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI) is a newly developed informant-rated instrument to measure psychopathic traits during early childhood. The aim of this study was to examine the longitudinal measurement invariance of the CPTI in a group of Chinese schoolchildren. Mothers of 585 children aged 8 to 12 years (50% girls) completed the CPTI twice with one-year interval. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the CPTI had strict invariance (i.e., equality of factor patterns, loadings, intercepts, and item uniqueness) across time. Furthermore, the internal consistencies for the CPTI subscales were good at both time points and the stability coefficients over time were moderate. Findings suggest that, in children aged 8 to 12 years old, changes in CPTI scores across time can be attributed to actual changes in the child’s psychopathic personality.

Comments

This work was originally published in PLOS One, available at https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0219136

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.