Development and Validation of Cyber Victimization Scale (CVS)

Abstract

Objective. Present study was carried to develop a scale to measure Cyber Victimization. 

Method. The research was carried out in three phases. Phase I consisted of the development of cyber victimization scale. After extensive literature review of available scale and theories of cyber-victimization, focused group discussions were held to generate item pool.  Thirty five items were identified after subjective evaluation by experts.

Analyses. Scale items were evaluated empirically for content validation and factor analysis on college and university students (N=317) both boys (n=138) and girls (n=179).  The result indicated that cyber-victimization scale (CVS) is an internally consistent scale with five factors (α ranged between.73-.90). Phase II was aimed to establish psychometric properties of the scale and the scale was proved to be valid and reliable measure for future use. Study III  was conducted on an independent sample of school and college students (N=75). Test – test reliability, split half reliability and coefficient alpha was used to establish reliability of the scale and was paved to be a reliable measure.  The convergent and discriminant validity was established with the help of Cyber Bully/Victim scale (Horzum, 2010). Results of phase III showed that Cyber-victimization scale is a valid measure. In last phase gender differences in cyber-victimization and relationship between time spent on social networking sites and cyber victimization was also measured. There was significant mean gender difference in cyber-victimization and there was also a significant positive relationship (r=.52^**) between time spent on social networking sites and cyber-victimization.

Keywords: cyber victimization, development, focused group, factor analysis, validation,  convergent  validity, discriminant validity

JEL classification: HEC