Assessing Internet Addiction at the University Level: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Internet Addiction Scale in Higher Education in Pakistan

Abstract

Nowadays, educational institutions are providing internet access to support higher education. Internet addiction is gradually becoming a part of students’ behavior, as universities are providing continuous access to students. Increased internet addicts need a proper tool to measure internet addiction among university students. This research study is intended to observe the reliability and the validity of the Internet Addiction Scale. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Cronbach’s alpha are used for this. Both Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Cronbach’s alpha are necessary to examine the value of the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS) to measure various aspects of internet addiction in the Universities of Pakistan. The objective of this research was to measure the construct validity of the Scale “Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS)”. This process was done by checking its three factors through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The second objective was to calculate the reliability of the internal consistency of the Scale. Cronbach’s alpha was recorded for this purpose. This research study was Quantitative. A survey of 251 students was conducted to collect information. This sample was selected from three departments of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences to respond to the research questionnaire. The confirmatory factor Analysis was conducted through Smart PLS software. The results indicated that the model was appropriate, reliable, and valid for advanced structural model analysis.