E-ISSN : 2733-4538
We conducted confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) to examine if the factor structure of a Korean version of the BDI(K-BDI) is invariant across undergraduate and clinical samples and if the factor loadings are equal across these two samples. In Study 1, six models about factor structure of the BDI reported in previous studies were evaluated with CFA on the data of 412 undergraduate samples. A hierarchical three-factor model was considered to be most appropriate as well as parsimonious in describing the data. Additionally, it was inappropriate to assume that there would be no correlation between the factors of the BDI. In Study 2, metric invariance across undergraduate students in Study 1 and clinical samples in our recent study was tested. Partial metric invariance across samples was confirmed after 5 first-order and one second-order estimates proving to be nonequivalent were not constrained. The results indicate that both factor structure and most factor loadings of the K-BDI are invariant across undergraduate and clinical samples.