Measurement Invariance of the Flourishing Scale among a Large Sample of Canadian Adolescents.

ABSTRACT

Our aim was to examine measurement invariance of the Flourishing Scale (FS)-a concise measure of psychological wellbeing-across two study samples and by population characteristics among Canadian adolescents. Data were retrieved from 74,501 Canadian secondary school students in Year 7 (2018-2019) of the COMPASS Study and from the original validation of the FS (n = 689). We assessed measurement invariance using a confirmatory factor analysis in which increasingly stringent equality constraints were specified for model parameters between the following groups study sample (i.e., adolescents vs. adults), gender, grade, and ethno-racial identity. In all models, full measurement invariance of the FS across all sub-groups was demonstrated. Our findings support the validity of the FS for measuring psychological wellbeing among Canadian adolescents in secondary school. Observed differences in FS score among subgroups therefore represent true differences in wellbeing rather than artifacts of differential interpretation.