Psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire to measure boys’ and adults’ involvement in video games

There has been a discussion about the inclusion of video game disorder in the list of diseases of the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition) and the upcoming ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 11th revision), however, modern psychology lacks screening tools to distinguish addicts from avid players. The objective of the research is to test our questionnaire determining the types of involvement in video games and the degree of its severity according to certain parameters, such as representativeness, instant reliability (internal consistency), content and construct validity. Thus, the article presents the results constituting the development and primary validation of the questionnaire measuring the involvement of young men and adults in video games. The study hypothesizes that the proposed questionnaire is representative and valid (content and construct validity). In the course of the study, which involved respondents aged 18 to 30 years (N = 124, M = 25.8), the structure of the questionnaire was determined. The factor analysis procedure determined that there are six types of involvement in video games: “Addiction”, “Feeling of Community”, “Emotional Support”, “Immersion”, “Streaming” and “Identification”. The obtained Cronbach's alpha coefficients for all the scales of the questionnaire and the final indicator demonstrated satisfactory consistency of the questionnaire (0.45- 0.83). To check the construct validity, there have been used such tools as the CIAS scale, a test questionnaire of the degree of involvement of younger adolescents in video games (A. V. Grishina) adapted for a more adult sample and the Internet addiction methodology (T. A. Nikitina, A. Yu. Egorov). The obtained correlations confirm the construct validity of the questionnaire. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the diagnostic method proposed by us can be used to distinguish addicts from the general array of people who are highly enthusiastic about video games.