Reliability and Validity of the Korean Version of the Internet Addiction Test among College Students

Abstract

We developed a Korean translation of the Internet Addiction Test (KIAT), widely used self-report for internet addiction and tested its reliability and validity in a sample of college students. Two hundred seventy-nine college students at a national university completed the KIAT. Internal consistency and two week test-retest reliability were calculated from the data, and principal component factor analysis was conducted. Participants also completed the Internet Addiction Diagnostic Questionnaire (IADQ), the Korea Internet addiction scale (K-scale), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 for the criterion validity. Cronbach's alpha of the whole scale was 0.91, and test-retest reliability was also good (r = 0.73). The IADQ, the K-scale, and depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with the KIAT scores, demonstrating concurrent and convergent validity. The factor analysis extracted four factors (Excessive use, Dependence, Withdrawal, and Avoidance of reality) that accounted for 59% of total variance. The KIAT has outstanding internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. Also, the factor structure and validity data show that the KIAT is comparable to the original version. Thus, the KIAT is a psychometrically sound tool for assessing internet addiction in the Korean-speaking population.

Assessment of Problematic Internet Use by the Compulsive Internet Use Scale and the Internet Addiction Test: A Sample of Problematic and Pathological Gamblers

“…Our data confirm internal consistencies of the CIUS and the IAT that had been suggested by previous studies [11,23,24,25,26,27]. Low Cronbach's α scores were found for IAT subscales ‘Neglect of work', ‘Anticipation' and ‘Neglect of social life'.…”

“…Therefore, it is necessary to investigate in detail whether or not the present cut-offs represent a threshold with respect to clinical relevance and impairment. Further limitations of our study include that in contrast to the six-factor structure we used for our analysis within subscales [27], more recent studies found strongly varying factor solutions for the IAT [23,26,43]. This discrepancy should be topic of future research.…”

“…A score of 40-69 has been proposed to be interpreted as indicating problems, a score of 70-100 as indicating significant problems. Previous studies have shown high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.89-0.93) of the IAT [23,24,25,26]. According to Widyanto and McMurran [27] the IAT consists of six factors: salience (e.g.…”

Differences between specific and generalized problematic Internet uses according to gender, age, time spent online and psychopathological symptoms

“…On the one hand, the term ''addiction'' has been repeatedly criticized (Pezoa-Jares, EspinozaLuna, & Vasquez-Medina, 2012;Rehbein & Möble, 2013), allowing the emergence of new terminologies less controversial such as problematic, pathological, excessive or compulsive Internet use, all describing the same phenomenon (Adièle & Olatokun, 2014;Lee et al, 2013). Among these terms, Problematic Internet Use (PIU) seems to be the most popular (Hsu & Shih, 2013) and thus will be primarily used in this article.…”

Uso Problemático da Internet em Adultos: Que relação com sintomas clínicos?

“…Caplan (2002) demonstrou existir uma associação entre o uso problemático da Internet e a depressão, assim como outros estudos (Kraut, et al, 1998;Lee, Lee, Gyeong, Yu, Song, & Kim, 2013).…”