The (Mis)measure of Misbehavior: Cross-National Invariance of the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener across 32 Countries

Citation

Lazic M, Adams S, Aritio-Solana R, Aryanto CB, Avsec A, Bakhshi A, Bender M, Berjot S, Betancourth Zambrano S, Brajsa-Zganec A, Broche-Perez Y, Buzea C, Cabello R, Carreca V & Roberts C (2025) The (Mis)measure of Misbehavior: Cross-National Invariance of the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener across 32 Countries. Development and Psychopathology. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425100473

Abstract
The present study investigated the cross-national measurement invariance of a 10-item Youth Externalizing Problems Screener (YEPS) on a sample of 17,489 adolescents from 32 countries. The original one-factor and two-factor models of YEPS were found to provide a poor fit to the data in most countries. Following the removal of two semantically overlapping items and inclusion of correlated error terms, adequate model fit was obtained in 31 of 32 countries. Measurement invariance testing of an abbreviated 8-item YEPS (YEPS-SF) supported configural invariance. Partial scalar invariance was achieved only after freely estimating numerous parameters. The alignment analysis revealed that 22% of parameters were non-invariant across countries. South Africa, Hungary, and India showed the largest number of non-invariant parameters, whereas the lowest number of non-invariant parameters was detected in several European countries. These findings underscore both the promise of the YEPS-SF as a screening instrument within individual countries and the challenge of developing cross-culturally comparable measures, suggesting that cultural adaptations may be necessary

Keywords
Adolescence; culture; externalizing problems; measurement invariance; youth externalizing problems screener

Notes
Additional authors: Rosalinda Cassibba, Judith Cavazos-Arroyo, Fatemeh Daemi, Diego D. Díaz-Guerra, Marija Džida, Mona Eidelsburger, Pablo Fernández Berrocal, Evelyn Fernández-Castillo, Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero, Tomasz Frackowiak, Teresa Freire, Vesna Gavrilov-Jerković, Biljana Gjoneska, Jesús Guerrero-Alcedo, Md Jamil Hossain, Jessie Hillekens , Stefan Höfer, Tareq Mahmud, Naved Iqbal, Szilvia Jámbori, Mohsen Joshanloo, Ljiljana Kaliterna Lipovčan, Tina Kavčič, Marta Kowal, Marija Krstevska Taseva, Kwok Kit Tong, Denisse Manrique-Millones, Michal Misiak, Pasquale Musso, Vojana Obradović, Javier Ortuño Sierra, Ioana Orzea, Ahmet Özaslan, Joonha Park, Marija Pašić, Rasa Pilkauskaitė Valickienė, Rogelio Puente-Díaz, Lizbeth Puerta-Sierra, Gordana Ristevska Dimitrovska, S. Craig Roberts, Puji Tania Ronauli, Shazly Savahl, Danielius Serapinas, Sok Ian Kuan, Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski, Dijana Sulejmanović, Mst Sadia Sultana, Sze Man Yuen, Erzsébet Szél, Dušana Šakan, Henri Tilga, Aleksandar Tomašević, Wenceslao Unanue, Jesús Unanue, Marieke van Egmond, Murat Yıldırım, Gaja Zager Kocjan, Laura Zamarian, Marija Zotović-Kostić and Veljko Jovanović