PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE YOUNG SCALE OF INTERNET ADDICTION (IAT) ON A SAMPLE OF TRIPOLI UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
The increase in the number of people who use the Internet has led to the emergence of the problem of addiction, which made it necessary to provide an objective tool to distinguish between normal use and excessive use. In this regard, the Internet Addiction Scale is one of the most important and well known of these tools. Although the validity and reliability of the scale has been evaluated in many cultures, the Libyan version of the IAT has never been examined for validity and reliability. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the translated Libyan version of the IAT. Participants of this study were 105 university students (78 males and 27 females). Correlation coefficients between the item scores and total test scores ranged from 0.741 to 0.416. All of these values were statistically significant. Exploratory Factor Analysis of the IAT extracted four factors: Time Management, Social Isolation, Passion, and Dependency. Cronbach α, internal consistency coefficient for the first factor was 0.891; second factor was 0.633; third factor was 0.761; fourth factor was 0.871; and for the whole scale was 0.881. Spearman Brown value for the scale was 0.818. Guttmann Split-Half value for the scale was 0.810. Based on these findings, the IAT is a proper instrument that can be used in further research on internet addiction for Libyan university students.
Keywords: Internet Addiction, Libya, IAT, Psychometrics, Passion.