Arabic validation of a cyberbullying assessment instrument

Cyberbullying is a new form of peer violence that has become a widespread problem in the world. The prevalence of this phenomenon is not known in Tunisia due to the absence of validated assessment instruments. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the questionnaire "Second Revision of the Revised Cyberbullying Inventory".

We translated this questionnaire into dialectal Tunisian Arabic using the back-translation method. To study the construct validity and the reliability, we conducted a cross-sectional study involving 962 Tunisian adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to study construct validity for the two dimensions of the scale: cyber-victimization and cyber-aggression. To test reliability, the global internal consistency was computed for the two sections of the scale.

The translated version was considered satisfactory. The adjustment indices of the confirmatory factor analysis were satisfactory for both sections confirming the two-dimensional nature of the scale. The values of the cyber-aggression section were as follows: Comparative Fit Index=0.92; Tucker-Lewis Index=0.9; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation=0.04; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual=0.01. As for the cyber-victimization section, fit indices were as follows: Comparative Fit Index=0.92; Tucker-Lewis Index=0.9; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation=0.01; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual=0.07. Both sections showed good reliability. The internal consistency of each section was optimal. In fact, the Cronbach alpha was respectively 0.79 for cyber-aggression and 0.73 for cyber-victimization.

The Arabic version of the "Second Revision of the Revised Cyberbullying Inventory" is a psychometrically valid assessment. This scale could be useful to conduct further research and allow us to better understand the phenomenon of cyberbullying.