The Development and Validation of Measurement Instruments to Address Interactions with Positive Social Media Content

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present study conceptualized and developed new measurement instruments to assess adolescents’ a) exposure to, b) liking, and c) posting of positive content on social media. By means of an integrative review of the literature, six focus groups and 14 in-depth interviews, 19 items were developed for each scale. Based on a cross-sectional study among 294 adolescents, EFA and CFA extracted two valid and reliable factors for exposure to positive social media content, one valid and reliable factor for liking positive social media content, and three valid and reliable factors for posting positive social media content. A short version of these three (multifactorial) scales was created and administered in a two-wave panel study among 1419 adolescents and in a cross-sectional study among 493 late adolescents. Test–retest reliability, structural validity, construct validity, and full metric invariance across age and gender were established for all short scales, except for the posting scale for which only partial metric invariance was achieved across gender.