Development of the parental knowledge-attitude scale for children’s use of digital devices: a methodological study

Aims: This study focuses on creating a comprehensive scale to measure parents’ knowledge and attitudes about children’s digital device use and rigorously examining its validity and reliability to ensure its effectiveness. Methods: The study was designed and conducted using a methodological approach. A 43-item question pool was created for the Parental Knowledge-Attitude Scale for children’s use of digital devices. After receiving expert opinions on the items and conducting a pilot study, the number of items was reduced to 19. A field study was conducted for the 19-item scale. The research was carried out in the pediatric clinics of a university training and research hospital between February and March 2023. The universe of the study consisted of parents (n=416) whose children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years were hospitalized in the pediatric clinics of the specified hospital for any reason between the specified dates, and who did not have any chronic diseases or psychological problems, and who were open to communication and cooperation. The study was conducted with the entire population without using the sampling method. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using SPSS and AMOS software. The statistical significance level was accepted as 5%. Ethical principles have been adhered to. Results: It was determined that the obtained data were suitable for factorization and the sample size was sufficient. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to discover construct validity. The number of factors was decided according to the eigenvalue criteria, explained variance, and scree plot graph. Scale items had 3 components and there was a significant correlation among them. The total variance explained by the factors was 61.3%. The total score average of the scale was 75.95±10.7 and the reliability Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.979. The item discrimination method was used for the internal consistency of the scale, it was determined that each item distinguished the measured phenomenon and was statistically significant (p