Vol. 2026 No. 3 (2026)
Articles

Development and psychometric validation of the adolescent online responsibility scale

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  • Richard Brown,
  • Sophia Smith
Richard Brown
Simon Fraser University,8888 University Drive, Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada
Sophia Smith
Simon Fraser University,8888 University Drive, Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada

Published 29-05-2026

Keywords

  • Adolescent,
  • Online Responsibility,
  • Reliability,
  • Validity,
  • Scale Development

Copyright (c) 2026 The Young Thinker's Review

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

[1]
R. . Brown and S. . Smith, “Development and psychometric validation of the adolescent online responsibility scale”, The Young Thinker's Rev., vol. 2026, no. 3, pp. 6–13, May 2026, doi: 10.62852/ytr/2026/265.

Abstract

Objective: To develop the Adolescent Online Responsibility Scale and examine its psychometric properties. Methods: Items were initially generated through literature review and interviews. A total of 785 middle school students from Guangdong Province were conveniently sampled for testing. Item analysis was used to screen appropriate items. Data were subsequently split for exploratory factor analysis (EFA, n=447) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA, n=338). Results: EFA yielded a 20-item scale with five factors: Online Responsibility Cognition, Online Responsibility Emotion, Online Responsibility Volition, Online Responsibility Behavior, and Online-Real World Responsibility Consistency. Factor loadings ranged from 0.50 to 0.80, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 52.85%. CFA results indicated a good fit for the five-factor model. The scale demonstrated an internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α) of 0.73, a split-half reliability of 0.67, and a test-retest reliability of 0.89. Conclusion: The Adolescent Online Responsibility Scale meets psychometric requirements for reliability and validity and is suitable for research on adolescents' online responsibility.

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