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Keywords:

Social Sciences, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, Internet addiction, Internet Addiction Test, Factor analysis, Internal consistency, PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES, MODEL, DISORDER, 0806 Information Systems, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Education, 4608 Human-centred computing, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. In our digital age, the availability of an instrument to measure Internet addiction in Poland is not only a necessity but a priority. The urgency lies in the pressing need to rehabilitate Polish Internet addicts and those who are on the verge of becoming addicts. Thus, the purpose of this research study is to present a valid instrument for measuring Internet users' level of addiction, namely the well-established Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT). A total of 1245 college students participated in the study (69.5% males). On this large sample, the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the IAT were investigated. The internal consistency was excellent (α =.900). Also, except for one item, the corrected item-total correlation values ranged from.384 to.648, indicating that they measured the same construct: Internet addiction. Principal component analysis confirmed the presence of two components. This study presents evidence that the Polish version of the IAT included here is a valid instrument for measuring Internet addiction.