The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 2 205 Convergent Validity Testing Scores of a national sample of U.S. adults on the IWI were correlated with the following established measures to investigate convergent validity of scores: the MHI-5, PHQ-9, and GAD-7. A threshold of r > +/− .50 was used to evidence convergent validity of scores (Drummond et al., 2016). The IWI displayed a strong correlation with scores on the MHI-5 (r = .66, r2 = .44, p < .001, 2-tailed). A strong correlation also emerged between scores on the IWI and PHQ-9 (r = −.56, r2 = .31, p < .001, 2-tailed). Finally, we found a strong correlation between the IWI and GAD-7 (r = −.52, r2 = .27, p < .001, 2-tailed). Discussion The primary aims of this study were to test the factorial invariance and convergent validity evidence of IWI scores with a national sample of adults in the United States. IW is a wellness-based construct that dovetails with the wellness orientation of the counseling profession (Bennett et al., 2023; Myers, 1992; Myers & Sweeney, 2014). Bennett et al. (2023) developed and validated IWI scores with samples of child welfare professionals; however, a score validation study was necessary to ensure that the measure was appropriately calibrated with a sample of U.S. adults. Collectively our results supported the psychometric properties of the unidimensional IWI model but not the two-dimensional model. The findings will be discussed accordingly. Unidimensional IWI Model The CFA and MCFA results were promising for the unidimensional IWI model. Unidimensional IWI scores demonstrated strong invariance (metric and scalar) for all sociodemographic variables, which is particularly noteworthy, as it is not uncommon for at least one fit index to evidence metric invariance only. These results supported the generalizability of a sample of U.S. adults’ scores on the unidimensional IWI. Collectively, the MCFA results revealed that IW had the same meaning among U.S. adults between the following sociodemographic variables: income, gender, ethnoracial identity, help-seeking history, and education. These sociodemographic variables are associated with differences in terms of wellness (Kalkbrenner, 2022; Kobayashi et al., 2021; Patrick et al., 2020). This finding is encouraging, as professional counselors need wellness-based screening tools now more than ever considering the complex and comorbid nature of mental and physical health issues among U.S. adults (Clarke et al., 2020; NAMI, 2022). In particular, the IWI offers professional counselors a brief tool for measuring a wellness-based construct (IW) that is invariant among U.S. adults. The results of convergent validity testing were also favorable, as the strength and direction of all correlations were in the expected directions. The effect size estimates (practical significance) for all correlations were in the strong range (Sink & Mvududu, 2010). The strength of the effect size estimate for the co-variance between IWI scores and MHI-5 scores was particularly noteworthy and evidenced 44% shared variance. Also as expected, IWI scores of a sample of U.S. adults demonstrated strong negative correlations with the GAD-7 (anxiety severity) and the PHQ-9 (depression severity). This finding is promising for a couple of reasons. First, it supports the convergent validity evidence of IWI scores, as wellness-based constructs tend to display negative correlations with both anxiety and depression severity (Kalkbrenner, 2022). In other words, the results of convergent validity testing supported that the IWI measured the intended construct of measurement. Second, these findings are promising when considering the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders among U.S. adults (Clarke et al., 2020; NAMI, 2022). Future outcome research is needed to establish causality between latent traits. However, the findings of the present study provide tentative evidence surrounding a notable proportion of covariation between a sample of U.S. adults’ IWI scores and lower anxiety and depression scores.
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