Academic Performance Antecedent Scale: validation with native and recent immigrant children

This study aims to assess the measurement invariance of the three subscales of the newly developed Academic Performance Antecedent Scale (APAS)--School Factors, Mother's Parenting Style, and Individual Factors--across native and new immigrant children in Taiwan. The study sample comprised 527 Grade 4 students (M age = 10.4 yr., SD = 0.6), 263 boys and 264 girls. The three groups were urban and rural children of Taiwanese natives (n = 343, 65.1%), and 184 children with non-Taiwanese mothers (34.9%). The four-factor structure of the School Factors Subscale, the three-factor structure of the Mother's Parenting Style Subscale, and the five-factor structure of the Individual Factors Subscale all showed at least acceptable fit for the groups. In addition, metric invariance was confirmed for the School Factors and Individual Factors Subscales. Metric invariance was partially obtained for the Mother's Parenting Style Subscale. The findings provide validity evidences for cross-cultural generalizability of the APAS.