Measurement invariance among Latinx and White engineering college students on the planning for career and family scale
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This study examined the measurement invariance of the Planning for Career and Family scale (PLAN; Ganginis Del Pino et al., 2013), originally developed to assess career and family planning decisions for women college students, across a diverse sample of women and men engineering students. The PLAN scale, initially comprising 24 items, was revised to a 21-item scale following confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) that eliminated three cross-loading items. Subsequent testing of one-factor, two-factor, and bifactor structural models suggested that the bifactor model was the best fit to the data, aligning with existing literature, and thus was used as the baseline model for subsequent measurement invariance testing. We tested the measurement invariance of the 21-item bifactor PLAN model across gender (men, women), ethnicity (Latinx, White), academic years (from first year to senior year), and intersections of gender and ethnicity (Latinx men, Latinx women, White men, White women) using two methods. Results of the two methods revealed mixed results on the levels of invariance, with scalar invariance across academic years supported by one method. Latent mean comparisons indicated significant differences in career and family planning intentions between sophomores and seniors. The findings confirm the PLAN scale's effectiveness across diverse student groups and underscore the importance of further validating its applicability in diverse populations. This study offers insights into shaping educational policies and programs that effectively support diverse career and family planning perspectives among engineering students in higher education.
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M.Ed.