ABSTRACT
Introduction: Excessive internet and mobile cell phone use has been increasing in recent years especially in teenagers who are a vulnerable population. However, there is a lack of psychometric evaluation of instruments that allow to identify behavior regarding problematic use of the internet and cell phones in the Latin America, particularly in Ecuador. The main aim of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of two instruments: the Internet-related experiences questionnaire (IREQ) and Mobile-related experiences questionnaire (MREQ) in high school students (n = 4, 174, M age = 15.63; 51.19% male and 48.37% female). Methods: The validation process was performed using one and two factors for both questionnaires according to previous literature. After checking the models proposed to date, the best fit model was the one-factor model for (IREQ) and one-factor model for (MREQ). Results and discussion: The invariance was performed using two samples according to gender (male, female) and has been confirmed with an acceptable internal consistency for both questionnaires. For IREQ (All, ω = 0.80; Male, ω = 0.77; Female, ω = 0.82) and for MREQ (All, ω = 0.83; Male, ω = 0.82; Female, ω = 0.84). In addition, we performed the correlation analysis between IREQ, MREQ, and socio-demographic variables and finally, both instruments demonstrated strong psychometric qualities within the local population.
ABSTRACT
Excessive internet gaming in high prevalence is a very common problem that has been increasing in recent years, especially in teenagers and university students. However, there is a lack of psychometric evaluation for Internet Gaming Disorder in the Latin American context, particularly in Ecuador. This paper aims to examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Internet Gaming Disorder test (IGD-20 test) in university and high school students (n=2931, Mage=15.99, 57.22% male and 42.51% female). The validation process was performed using one, two, five and six factors taking into account the Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Turkish contexts. After checking the models proposed to date, the best fit model was the one with a single factor. Using two samples according to gender (male, female), the invariance has been confirmed with an excellent internal consistency. All, α=0.94; Male, α=0.93; Female, α=0.93). Furthermore, we performed correlation analyses between the IGD-20 Test and socio-demographic variables, and finally, the IGD-20 Test applied to Ecuadorian teenagers and young people demonstrated good psychometric properties.
