Psychometric Validation of the Revised Family Affluence Scale: a Latent Variable Approach
Open accessAbstract
The aim was to develop and test a brief revised version of the family affluence scale. A total of 7120 students from Denmark, Greenland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Scotland and Slovakia reported on a list of 16 potential indicators of affluence. Responses were subject to item screening and test of dimensionality. Bifactor analysis revealed a strong general factor of affluence in all countries, but with additional specific factors in all countries. The specific factors mainly reflected overlapping item content. Item screening was conducted to eliminate items with low discrimination and local dependence, reducing the number of items from sixteen to six: Number of computers, number of cars, own bedroom, holidays abroad, dishwasher, and bathroom. The six-item version was estimated with Samejima's graded response model, and tested for differential item functioning by country. Three of the six items were invariant across countries, thus anchoring the scale to a common metric across countries. The six-item scale correlated with parental reported income groups in six out of eight countries. Findings support a revision to six items in the family affluence scale.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The FAS has demonstrated good psychometric properties to detect socioeconomic differences in adolescents in Western European countries.
“The FAS has demonstrated good psychometric properties to detect socioeconomic differences in adolescents in Western European countries [131, 132].”
From Efficacy of a transdiagnostic Internet prevention approach in adolescents (EMPATIA study): study protocol of a randomized controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [131]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Coefficient Alpha and the Internal Structure of Tests
Cronbach, L. J. (1951) · Psychometrika · doi:10.1007/bf02310555 · Cited by 43,931 · see citing works
Construct validity in psychological tests.
Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/h0040957 · Cited by 11,195 · see citing works
Nunnally, J. C. 1.-1., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994) · Cited by 9,365 · see citing works
Applications of Item Response Theory To Practical Testing Problems
Lord, F. M. (2012) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203056615 · Cited by 5,009 · see citing works
Journal of Statistical Software
de Leeuw, J. (2009) · Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Statistics · doi:10.1002/wics.10 · Cited by 3,608 · see citing works
Flora, D. B., & Curran, P. J. (2004) · Psychological Methods · doi:10.1037/1082-989x.9.4.466 · Cited by 3,105 · see citing works
Currie, C. E., Molcho, M., Boyce, W., Holstein, B. E., Torsheim, T., & Richter, M. (2008) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.11.024 · Cited by 1,637 · see citing works
Self-citationThe theoretical status of latent variables.
Borsboom, D., Mellenbergh, G. J., & van Heerden, J. (2003) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.110.2.203 · Cited by 1,566 · see citing works
Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis
Tatsuoka, K. K., & Bartholomew, D. J. (1989) · Journal of Educational Statistics · doi:10.2307/1164730 · Cited by 1,008 · see citing works
Samejima, F. (1997) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-2691-6_5 · Cited by 946 · see citing works
Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis: A Unified Approach
Bartholomew, D., Knott, M., & Moustaki, I. (2011) · Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics · doi:10.1002/9781119970583 · Cited by 842 · see citing works
Choi, S. W., Gibbons, L. E., & Crane, P. K. (2011) · Journal of Statistical Software · doi:10.18637/jss.v039.i08 · Cited by 756 · see citing works
The role of the bifactor model in resolving dimensionality issues in health outcomes measures
Reise, S. P., Morizot, J., & Hays, R. D. (2007) · Quality of Life Research · doi:10.1007/s11136-007-9183-7 · Cited by 747 · see citing works
Currie, C. E., Elton, R. A., Todd, J., & Platt, S. (1997) · Health Education Research · doi:10.1093/her/12.3.385 · Cited by 721 · see citing works
Self-citationExploring Alternative Measures of Welfare in the Absence of Expenditure Data
Sahn, D. E., & Stifel, D. (2003) · Review of Income and Wealth · doi:10.1111/j.0034-6586.2003.00100.x · Cited by 717 · see citing works
Three Cs in measurement models: Causal indicators, composite indicators, and covariates.
Bollen, K. A., & Bauldry, S. (2011) · Psychological Methods · doi:10.1037/a0024448 · Cited by 535 · see citing works
Howe, L. D., Hargreaves, J., & HUTTLY, S. R. A. (2008) · Emerging Themes in Epidemiology · doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-3 · Cited by 453 · see citing works
Exploratory Bi-Factor Analysis
Jennrich, R. I., & Bentler, P. M. (2011) · Psychometrika · doi:10.1007/s11336-011-9218-4 · Cited by 300 · see citing works
Assessing socioeconomic status in adolescents: the validity of a home affluence scale
Wardle, J., Robb, K. A., & Johnson, F. (2002) · Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.56.8.595 · Cited by 210 · see citing works
A Child Material Deprivation Index
Main, G., & Bradshaw, J. (2012) · Child Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s12187-012-9145-7 · Cited by 149 · see citing works
Poverty or preference: what do ‘consensual deprivation indicators’ really mean?
McKay, S. (2004) · Fiscal Studies · doi:10.1111/j.1475-5890.2004.tb00102.x · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Reliability and Validity of Family Affluence Scale (FAS II) among Adolescents in Beijing, China
Liu, Y., Wang, M., Villberg, J. J., Torsheim, T., Tynjälä, J., Lv, Y., & Kannas, L. K. (2011) · Child Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s12187-011-9131-5 · Cited by 118 · see citing works
Self-citationBoudreau, B., & Poulin, C. (2008) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s11205-008-9334-4 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
Schnohr, C., Kreiner, S., Due, E., Currie, C. E., Boyce, W., & Diderichsen, F. (2007) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s11205-007-9221-4 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
Self-citationSocio-economic Indexes in Surveys for Comparisons between Countries
Batista‐Foguet, J. M., Fortiana, J., Currie, C. E., et al. (2004) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1023/b:soci.0000032341.14612.b8 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Self-citationMueller, R. O., & Knapp, T. R. (2018) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315755649-29 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Pförtner, T., Günther, S., Levin, K. A., Torsheim, T., & Richter, M. (2014) · Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech-2014-204529 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Self-citationAssessing the use of the Family Affluence Scale (FAS) among Irish schoolchildren.
Molcho, M., Gabhainn, S. N., & Kelleher, C. C. (2007) · PubMed · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Household Possessions Indices as Wealth Measures: A Validity Evaluation
Traynor, A., & Raykov, T. (2013) · Comparative Education Review · doi:10.1086/671423 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Measuring Household Wealth with Latent Trait Modelling: An Application to Malawian DHS Data
Vandemoortele, M. (2013) · Social Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s11205-013-0447-z · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Schnohr, C., Makransky, G., Kreiner, S., et al. (2013) · Measurement · doi:10.1016/j.measurement.2013.06.016 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Self-citationThe reliability and validity of the Family Affluence Scale
Kehoe, S., & O’Hare, L. (2010) · Effective Education · doi:10.1080/19415532.2010.524758 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Doku, D. T., Koivusilta, L. K., & Rimpelä, A. (2009) · Child Indicators Research · doi:10.1007/s12187-009-9045-7 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Makransky, G., Schnohr, C., Torsheim, T., et al. (2014) · Quality of Life Research · doi:10.1007/s11136-014-0728-2 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Self-citationAssessing the use of the Family Affluence scale among Irish school children
Gabhainn, S. N., Molcho, M., & Kelleher, C. C. (2007) · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Latent variable models and factor analysis
Knott, M., & Bartholomew, D. J. (1999) · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Assessing the use of the Family Affluence scale among Irish school children
Molcho, M., Gabhainn, S. N., & Kelleher, C. C. (2007) · ARAN (University of Galway Research Repository) (Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway) · doi:10.13025/22087 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Problematic Social Media Use and Health among Adolescents
Paakkari, L., Tynjälä, J., Lahti, H., Ojala, K., & Lyyra, N. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18041885 · Cited by 169 · see citing works
Hobza, V., Hamrik, Z., Bucksch, J., & De Clercq, B. (2017) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph14121540 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
Boniel-Nissim, M., van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M., Furstova, J., Marino, C., Lahti, H., Inchley, J., Šmigelskas, K., Vieno, A., & Badura, P. (2022) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.107144 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Possible Effects of Social Media Use on Adolescent Health Behaviors and Perceptions
Buda, G., Lukoševičiūtė, J., Šalčiūnaitė, L., & Šmigelskas, K. (2021) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.1177/0033294120922481 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Pavarini, G., Reardon, T., Hollowell, A., Bennett, V., Lawrance, E., Peer Support Young People’s Advisory Group, Brooks-Hall, E., Foster-Estwick, A., Juma, D. O., Lewis, P., et al. (2023) · European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s00787-021-01933-0 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Marengo, N., Borraccino, A., Charrier, L., Berchialla, P., Dalmasso, P., Caputo, M., & Lemma, P. (2021) · Public Health · doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2021.08.010 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Morningstar, B., Clayborne, Z., Wong, S. L., Roberts, K. C., Prince, S. A., Gariépy, G., Goldfield, G. S., Janssen, I., & Lang, J. J. (2023) · Canadian Journal of Public Health · doi:10.17269/s41997-023-00754-9 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom on adolescent’s time use (CONTRAST study)
Pokhilenko, I., Frew, E., Murphy, M., & Pallan, M. (2025) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0310597 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Hirsig, A., Häfeli, X. A., & Schmidt, S. J. (2024) · Trials · doi:10.1186/s13063-024-08241-3 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“The FAS has demonstrated good psychometric properties to detect socioeconomic differences in adolescents in Western European countries [131, 132].”
BackgroundMethodPavarini, G., Reardon, T., Hollowell, A., Bennett, V., Lawrance, E., Group, P. S. Y. P. A., Pinfold, V., & Singh, I. (2021) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/m7syr · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- the FAS Development Study Group, Torsheim, T., Cavallo, F., Levin, K. A., Schnohr, C., Mazur, J., Niclasen, B., & Currie, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Bergen (NO)
- NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GB)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- University of Southern Denmark (DK)
- University of St Andrews (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Torsheim, Torbjørn
- ORCID
- Venue
- Child Indicators Research
- Published
- 2015-10-18
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 771-784
- ISSN
- 1874-897X (ISSN-L)
- 1874-8988
- PMC
- PMC4958120
- OpenAlex
- W1803994745
- Cited by
- 472
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 60 · 2024: 66 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 62 · 2020: 46 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 16.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Child Indicators Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Bergen Open Research Archive (BORA) (University of Bergen) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- ResearchOnline (Glasgow Caledonian University) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- St Andrews Research Repository (St Andrews Research Repository) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Education › Health Education and Validation
- Keywords
- Family Affluence Scale, psychometric validation, scale revision, bifactor analysis, graded response model, differential item functioning, parental income
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
