Development of IAT-12, a reduced Spanish version of the internet addiction test

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the factorial structure of the IAT in a new Spanish sample of non-compulsory education students and to develop a shorter version of it based on empirical criteria. The paper also assesses the test’s internal consistency reliability and validity with respect to the original IAT, to three other Internet addiction tests and to a clinical symptomatology test (CORE-OM: Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure). A total sample comprising 1886 Spanish non-compulsory education students (average age: 21.04 years; SD = 4.72) was randomly divided into two halves. The first half (n = 932) was subjected to the IAT exploratory factorial analysis (EFA). In the second half, a confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) was performed with 954 surveys. A subgroup of 209 randomly selected participants were given three independent internet addiction tests in addition to the IAT. Following the EFA and CFA, a new version of the test called IAT-12 was designed, with 2 factors (Control and management of time; Salience and neglect of social life) showing a very high correlation with the original (.97). IAT-12 also showed high internal consistency and a high capacity to predict Internet addiction in young Spaniards, and is able quickly and simply to differentiate individuals who really have a problem of Internet addiction from those who do not, with a high level of sensitivity and specificity. Its validity was demonstrated with respect both to Young’s IAT itself and to external criteria for measuring Internet addiction and clinical symptomatology.