Publication
Title
Designing and validating the friendship quality on social network sites questionnaire
Author
Abstract
Social network sites (SNSs) provide adolescents with the opportunity to expand their social circle, which is associated with increased social capital. However, the social capital adolescents built depends on the quality of their friendships on SNSs. As no instruments are available to capture the quality of friendships on SNSs, this study designed and validated the Friendship Quality on Social Network Sites questionnaire (FQSNS-questionnaire). The questionnaire consists of five dimensions: satisfaction, companionship, help, intimacy, and self-validation. Explorative and confirmative factor analyses were applied on data of 1.695 friendships (i.e., offline-to-online, online-to-offline, and online friendships) gathered from 1.087 adolescents. Results pointed to a five-factor solution, applicable to any kind of friendship on SNSs and reflecting the proposed five dimensions of friendship quality. Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses supported measurement invariance across younger and older adolescents, and across boys and girls, at the levels of equal factor structure and loadings. Cronbach's alphas indicated a good internal consistency of each dimension. Correlation analysis indicated that the dimensions were strongly correlated to each other, which is unsurprising because they reflect the overall friendship quality. Based upon these results, we can conclude that dimensions of friendship quality can validly and reliably be assessed using the FQSNS-questionnaire. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Computers in human behavior. - Elmsford, N.Y., 1985, currens
Publication
Elmsford, N.Y. : 2018
ISSN
0747-5632 [print]
1873-7692 [online]
DOI
10.1016/J.CHB.2018.04.050
Volume/pages
86 (2018) , p. 289-298
ISI
000437968500029
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
BOF Sabbatical Leave - Michel Walrave.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 02.08.2018
Last edited 09.10.2023
To cite this reference