Description
The central aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of scores on the DUREL in its English version and Spanish translation for Hispanic-American (HA) women. The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) seeks to measure religiosity and offers a total score of religiosity and three subscales scores for organizational religiosity, non-organizational religiosity, and intrinsic religiosity. A community sample of 488 selfi-dentified HA women completed the DUREL in English (n = 245) or Spanish (n = 243), per each woman's expressed language preference. Normative data for DUREL total and subscale scores were described for more acculturated (English preference) and less acculturated (Spanish preference) HA women, and for the total group. Cronbach's alpha suggested good internal consistency of the total scale for the English-preference and total group samples, but data from the Spanish group was less internally consistent. DUREL subscales of organizational and non-organizational religiosity have only one item each and, therefore, could not be assessed for internal consistency, but the three-item subscale of intrinsic religiosity had satisfactory internal consistency for the total sample and each of the two language-preference subgroups. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), found support in the sample and in both subgroups for a model of one umbrella factor of religiosity with three underlying factors of organizational religiosity, non-organizational religiosity and intrinsic religiosity. For the total sample and both subgroups, EFA suggested one factor for the items of the intrinsic religiosity subscale. Confirmatory factor analysis validated our expectation for an overarching one-factor structure for the total sample and the English-preference subgroup. However, the one-factor structure was not confirmed for the Spanish-preference subgroup, disputing cross-language measure invariance and challenging the validity of the DUREL. Age was positively related to total score, and all subscale scores of religiosity, for the total sample and the English-preference subgroup. For the Spanish preference sample, age was positively related to non-organizational religiosity, but did not relate significantly to organizational religiosity or intrinsic religiosity. These findings suggests that the response pattern of less acculturated HA women to the DUREL's Spanish version is different from the response pattern of more acculturated HA women to the DUREL's English version.
