Analysis of a brief scale of Internet risk behaviors in Chilean youth

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a brief scale of Internet risk behaviors. The study was developed in two phases, involving 595 young people living in Chile (263 university students of 18–19 years and 332 high school students of 15–19 years). The participants responded to the brief scale of internet risk behaviors and several questions related to their online habits and experiences. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis show that the scale is composed of two factors: “reckless contact with strangers” (where the risk would be determined by reckless relations with potential aggressors online), and “indirect risk” (including behaviors expected for the age, but that are risky since they place the young person in a virtual context where online aggressors tend to capture their victims). The results support the validity of the scale, as they showed the expected relationships between the factorial scores and frequency of internet use, age of initiation on the internet, number of friends the young person only knows online, and frequency of online sexual victimization. However, there were problems of internal consistency in “indirect risk”, which suggests that it is necessary to continue evaluating the psychometric properties of the scale.