Commentary on strengthening the assessment of factorial invariance across population subgroups: a commentary on Varni et al. (2013)

In his commentary on Varni et al.’s (Qual Life Res. doi:10.​1007/​s11136-013-0370-4, 2013) article, McIntosh (Qual Life Res. doi:10.​1007/​s11136-013-0465-y, 2013) has two main arguments. First, we should have paid more attention to statistical tests (i.e., χ ² values) instead of approximate fit indexes for our analysis, especially with the baseline model. Second, Bayesian methods are better than the frequentist methods we used in determining the model’s invariance across age and gender groups. We believe that statistical tests do have a place in assessing model fit, but overemphasis on them, especially with larger sample sizes, can lead to errant decisions. Second, while we agree that Bayesian methods have the potential to contribute much to the field of assessing invariance, more development needs to be conducted before they can be widely utilized in assessing factorial invariance across groups.