Examining a Key Measure of Youth Disclosure to Parents for Measurement Invariance Across Time and Reporters

Youth disclosure (to parents) is an important factor in assessing parental knowledge and can be defined as the frequency with which adolescents share information about their daily activities. Unfortunately, measurement invariance (across time and reporter) is rarely reported in the literature for measures of youth disclosure, even though it is important to establish at least strong invariance before proceeding to further analyses where means are compared. Measurement invariance was examined across three time points (child ages 11, 14, and 17) and across reporter (youth report of disclosure to mother/father, maternal/paternal report of youth disclosure) for one of the primary measures of youth disclosure. The sample consisted of 335 families (youth, mother, father) from an urban center in the northwestern United States, with adolescent respondents being a primarily European American, middle-income sample of approximately equal numbers of boys and girls (51.6% female). Structural equation modeling was utilized to verify weak, strong and strict measurement invariance. Strong invariance was demonstrated in several instances across two time points (e.g., ages 11 and 14) but there was no evidence of strong invariance across the three time points, regardless of reporter. Implications for youth disclosure theory and construct development are discussed.