Measuring Online Social Support: Development and Validation of a Short Form for Chinese Adolescents

Supportive interactions on social media have great potential to benefit adolescents' development. However, there is no instrument to measure online social support (OSS) in China. The study aimed to develop and validate a Chinese short version of the Online Social Support Scale (OSSS). The original scale was translated into Chinese through multiple forward and backward translation protocols. The calibration sample (N = 262) was used to select items and test the reliability, validity, and internal structure of the short form. The cross-validation sample (N = 267) was then used to assess measurement invariance by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and examine criterion validity based on its relationships with life satisfaction, depression, and time on social media. The 20-item Chinese short version of OSSS (OSSS-CS) includes four factors: esteem/emotional support, social companionship, informational support, and instrumental support. Our results suggest that the OSSS-CS has high internal consistency, construct validity, and criterion validity. Furthermore, evidence of partial cross-validity demonstrated invariance of the variance-covariance matrices, factor structure, factor loadings, and factor variance across independent samples. The results also revealed that the original OSSS could be replicated across cultures. Finally, the short form developed in the study can be used as a reliable and valid measure of online social support among the Chinese adolescent population.