Reliability and validity of the parental monitoring of children’s digital activity (PARMON-CDA) scale: An exploratory factor analysis

Abstract

Background Indonesian netizens have a longer daily time spent on internet mobile phone use than the average duration daily worldwide. Indonesian parents need a measurement inventory to monitor their school-aged children's cyberspace activity. Aim This study aims to develop a measuring instrument for Parental Monitoring of children's digital activities. Method The research used the Aiken V coefficient to indicate scale content validity and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to reveal the underlying dimensions of the Parental Monitoring of Children's Digital Activity (PARMON-CDA) Scale. Results A total of 20 parents (fathers or mothers) completing the first version 75 items version PARMON-CDA scale reported that parents tend to easily understand the item statements scale and take approximately 11–20 minutes to complete the response (MAge = 38.15; SDAge = 2.74). Taking into consideration the results of the readability test and the expert committee, we improved the 75-item-version of PARMON-CDA scale (Aiken V coefficient = 0.40–0.95; moderate to high) to the 36-items-version of PARMON- CDA Scale. A total of 433 parents (mothers or fathers) of school-age children (MParents’ age = 36.31, SDParents’ age = 5.60) filled out 36 items of the PARMON-CDA online scale. By re-identifying the item discrimination power (riX ≥ 0.30), the reliability analysis showed the 20-item version of the PARMON-CDA scale has good reliability (Cronbach alpha=0.86). The results of the EFA analysis on the 20-items version PARMON-CDA Scale indicate that the PARMON-CDA scale has five factors, namely Guidance Strategies, Boundary-Setting Strategies, Supervision Strategies, Agreements, and Enforcement Strategies. Conclusion The Parental Monitoring of Children’s Digital Activity (PARMON-CDA) Scale is a multidimensional construct that consists of five factors and demonstrated to have adequate reliability and content validity in Indonesian parent samples.