Digital Intelligence Child Scale Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

The study focused on examining the validity and reliability of the ‘Digital Intelligence Child Scale.’ The general screening model was used to test the validity and reliability of the scales organized as “Digital Intelligence Level 1 Child Scale” for illiterate children and “Digital Intelligence Level 2 Child Scale” for literate children. The sample of the study consisted of parents of 979 children aged 4-5 with typical development and 6-8 who were literate and attending kindergartens/preschools and primary schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in the city center of Ankara during the spring term of the 2021–2022 academic year and the autumn term of the 2022–2023 academic year. Following the analyses related to scope and validity, two scales were derived: the ‘Digital Intelligence Level 1 Children’s Scale’ with 29 items and 4 subdimensions, and the ‘Digital Intelligence Level 2 Children’s Scale’ with 44 items and 7 subdimensions. The four-factor structure identified for the Digital Intelligence Level 1 Children’s Scale accounted for 66.83% of the total variance, while the seven-factor structure determined for the Digital Intelligence Level 2 Children’s Scale explained 71.46% of the total variance. According to the confirmatory factor analysis, the CFI value was found to be 0.97 and the NFI value was found to be 0.93 for the Digital Intelligence Level 1 Children's Scale, while the CFI value was found to be 0.98 and the NFI value was found to be 0.97 in the Digital Intelligence Level 2 Children's Scale. To assess the reliability of the scales, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated and found to be 0.94 for the Digital Intelligence Level 1 Children’s Scale and 0.96 for the Digital Intelligence Level 2 Children’s Scale. Accordingly, the 'Digital Intelligence Level 1 Child Scale' and the 'Digital Intelligence Level 2 Child Scale' were concluded to be both valid and reliable.