Online risks at adolescence. Design and validation of a Parental Mediation Scale for Information and Communication Technologies (Riesgos en línea para los adolescentes. Diseño y validación de una escala de mediación parental para las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación — TIC)

Abstract

Parental mediation in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is a protective factor against adolescents’ online risk behaviours. This study aimed to design an assessment scale of parental mediation referred by minors and to explore its structure and psychometric properties. A total of 560 secondary education students (47.5% girls) informed, in addition to parental mediation, about their habits of connection and online communication, privacy and risky online behaviour, and cyber-victimization. Data revealed a Parental Mediation Scale for ICTs (EMP-TIC) composed of 28 items distributed in five dimensions: active regulation, restrictive regulation, co-use, software monitoring and personal monitoring, which explain 55.98% of the variance. The dimensions of monitoring and co-use showed significant positive correlations with cyber-victimization. Higher scores in parental mediation are associated with greater privacy. The Parental Mediation Scale (EMP-TIC) structure is coherent to previous theoretical proposals. EMP-TIC shows adequate psychometric properties and provides information about the parental patterns in the use of ICTs. The scale can be used as a total score of parental mediation or for each of the five included domains.