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Development and Psychometric Validation of a Novel Parental Digital Competence Scale
ABSTRACT
Background:
In the era of rapid digitization, parental digital competence is progressively vital for effective parenting and positive child health outcomes. Accurately assessing parental digital competence is a pivotal stride toward facilitating and appraising focused interventions.
Objective:
Given the scarcity of evidence concerning specialized assessment tools for parental digital competence, this study aimed to develop and validate a novel Parental Digital Competence Scale (PDCS).
Methods:
The Parental Digital Competence Scale (PDCS) was developed through a four-phase process: 1) Utilizing the European Commission's Digital Competence Framework as a guide to clarify the content to be measured. 2) Generating an item pool by reviewing relevant literature. 3) Employing a modified expert panel and conducting a pilot test to gather feedback on the initial items. 4) Performing psychometric analyses to assess item characteristics. The validation study included 477 family caregivers selected from Northwest China. An exploratory factor analysis with 248 participants was carried out to identify the factor structure of the scale. Convergent validity was examined. The reliability was assessed through internal consistency, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability.
Results:
Following the 4 phases, 23 items were included in the final instrument. The content validity index of the PDCS reached 0.975. Principal component analysis revealed a three-factor structure that explained 80.499% of the total variance. The final version of PDCS includes dimensions of Digital Methods Application, Digital Security, and Information Retrieval and Evaluation. The internal consistency appeared high for the PDCS, with a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.981. Its test-retest reliability stood at 0.840 and the split-half coefficient reached 0.958. The findings indicated a correlation between socio-economic factors and digital competence among participants.
Conclusions:
The PDCS seems to be a valid and reliable tool for assessing parental digital competence. Its application has the potential in identifying digital competence gaps among parents and facilitating targeted interventions, which may enhance parenting practices and child health in an ever-evolving digital environment.
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