Development of a computerized adaptive testing for internet addiction

Abstract

Internet addiction disorder has become one of the most popular forms of addiction in psychological and behavioral areas, and measuring it is growing increasingly important in practice. This study aimed to develop a computerized adaptive testing to measure and assess internet addiction (CAT-IA) efficiently. Four standardized scales were used to build the original item bank. A total of 59 polytomously scored items were finally chosen after excluding 42 items for failing the psychometric evaluation. For the final 59-item bank of CAT-IA, two simulation studies were conducted to investigate the psychometric properties, efficiency, reliability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity of CAT-IA under different stopping rules. The results showed that (1) the final 59 items met IRT assumptions, had high discrimination, showed good item-model fit, and were without DIF; and (2) the CAT-IA not only had high measurement accuracy in psychometric properties but also sufficient efficiency, reliability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity. The impact and limitations of CAT-IA were discussed, and several suggestions for future research were provided.