Home > Codebook > Measures > Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II) - Subject Baseline

Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II) - Subject Baseline

This measure appears in the following time-points: Baseline.

Related Construct

Description of Measure

The Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II; Cuellar, Arnold, & Maldonado, 1995) was adapted for this study to measure the adolescent's cultural orientation toward Mexican and Anglo cultures. This instrument was only administered to adolescents who identified themselves as Mexican-American. The scale contains 48 items to which participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "Not at all" to "Extremely often or almost always," with higher scores indicating greater cultural orientation. Six subscales are proposed for the ARSMA-II: Mexican Orientation - general (MOS; e.g., "I enjoy speaking Spanish."), Mexican Orientation - Affiliation (e.g., "My friends, while growing up, were of Mexican origin."), Mexican Orientation - Language (e.g., "I enjoy listening to Spanish language music."), Anglo Orientation - general (AOS; e.g., "I speak English."), Anglo Orientation - Affiliation (e.g., "My friends now are of Anglo origin."), and Anglo Orientation- Language (e.g., "I enjoy English language TV.").

A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were done on this scale for the sample of Mexican-American adolescents in this sample. These analyses led to the conclusion that subscales for Anglo Orientation - General and Mexican Orientation - General each fit the data (AOS-G: CFI = .95; TLI = .93; RMSEA = .069. MOS-G: CFI = .96; TLI = .95; RMSEA = .077. In addition a four factor model that splits these general orientations into language and affiliation scores also fits the data. These scores fit the baseline data in a four factor CFA model, allowing for some logical correlations of measurement error terms. The fit indices are: CFI = .92; TLI = .90; SRMR = .082; RMSEA = .069 for the four factor model. The measure is administered only to individuals who self-report that they are Mexican-American (a 'yes' response to S0Mexam). This means that there are six subscales derived from the ARSMA-II:

The following individual item is also available for this measure:

A number of the original ARSMA-II items did not load onto coherent factors for the scale, and were thus dropped from the interview at later waves.

Data Issues

References