Validation of a scale to evaluate internet addiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21134/haaj.v22i2.675Keywords:
Internet addiction, university students, Likert questionnaire, non-substance addiction, Mexican populationAbstract
The definition of prolonged Internet use as an addiction is unclear. Various strategies have been used to recover empirical data that allow us to consider this use as an addiction. The design of assessment instruments for Internet addiction stands out. However, there are few reliable and valid instruments that allow its evaluation. The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure Internet addiction, which integrates the parameters of substance addiction together with the parameters of behavioral addiction. A Likert scale with 29 items was used and it was applied to 128 university students who met the established criteria. The results indicated the presence of 6 factors that contain a total of 26 items and that managed to explain 69.47% of the total variance. In addition, the instrument in general obtained an acceptable internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.917. Of the variables whose factorial weights loaded significantly, alphas ranging from 0.86 for the first factor to 0.64 for the sixth factor were obtained. It is suggested that the instrument is a valid and reliable option that will allow evaluating addictive use of the Internet.
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