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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Research studies show a high penetration rate of Facebook usage among Nigerian most of which are compulsive. The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) had been validated in many languages and is used in many countries but not yet in Nigeria. This study validates BFAS to determine psychometric properties acceptable for Nigerian population.
METHOD: A total of 864 (mean age 20.5) undergraduates purposively selected from two stateowned and two privately owned Universities in Osun state southwestern Nigeria made up of 352 male and 512 females, participated in the study. Participants responded to Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), Internet Addiction Test (IAT), and Smartphone Addiction Scale- Short Version (SAS-SV).
RESULTS: Determined new norm for the six factors of BFAS for both male and female ranged from ≥ 42.3 (relapse) to ≥ 50.5 (mood modification). Internal consistency showed a Cronbach's coefficient of.90, a Spearman-Brown coefficient of.83 and Guttman Split-Half coefficient of.83. All items in the scale reported acceptable goodness-of-fit measures revealing corrected item-total correlations range of.88 to.90. All the factors of BFAS had acceptable Cronbach standardized alpha ranging from salience.73, to mood modification.81. Significant positive correlation was observed between the scales revealing concurrent validity scores of r =.558, p=.000 between BFAS and SAS-SV and r =.508, p =.000 between BFAS and IAT.
CONCLUSION: BFAS is none gender sensitive and has acceptable psychometric properties for Nigerian population.
Keywords: Keywords: Validation, Facebook Addiction, undergraduates, Nigeria.
Language: en |