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The German version of the internet addiction test: a validation study.
Antonia Barke1, Nele Nyenhuis, Birgit Kröner-Herwig
1Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Georg-Elias-Müller-Institute for Psychology, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. abarke@uni-goettingen.de
Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking
|September 26, 2012
Summary
The German version of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) demonstrates strong reliability and validity for assessing excessive internet use. This validated tool supports research and treatment of internet addiction in German-speaking populations.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Digital Health
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Increasing reports of excessive internet use necessitate reliable assessment tools.
- The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is a widely used questionnaire, but a German validation was previously unavailable.
Purpose of the Study:
- To validate the German version of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT).
- To assess the psychometric properties, including reliability and factorial structure, of the German IAT.
Main Methods:
- Administered an online version of the IAT to 1,041 participants and a paper/pencil version to 841 participants.
- Assessed 14-day retest reliability with a subsample of 108 students.
- Conducted factor analyses to determine the underlying structure of the questionnaire.
Main Results:
- The German IAT showed high internal consistency (α=0.91 online, α=0.89 offline).
- Two-week retest reliability was strong (r(tt)=0.83).
- Factor analysis revealed a consistent two-factorial structure across both samples, explaining substantial variance.
Conclusions:
- The German version of the IAT possesses good psychometric properties.
- The validated German IAT is suitable for research and clinical assessment of internet addiction.
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