Cyber Dating Violence Instrument for Teens (CyDAV-T)

Abstract

The Cyber Dating Violence Instrument for Teens (CyDAV-T), known in Spanish as “Escala de Violencia Online en Parejas Adolescentes,” is a specialized psychometric evaluation tool developed by Sánchez-Jiménez et al. (2023). Its core function is to measure both the perpetration (aggression) and suffering (victimization) of cyber dating violence among adolescents.

The scale development began with 34 items, conceptually grouped into three dimensions: verbal/emotional, control, and sexual violence. After expert analysis and rigorous statistical refinement based on a sample of high school students in Spain, the final instrument was reduced to 19 parallel items for both the aggression and victimization scales. The application of Item Response Theory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed a robust, three-factor latent structure, demonstrating strong internal consistency and validity for assessing digital abuse in romantic relationships.

Keywords

Adolescence, Aggression, Control, Couples, Cyber Dating Violence, Romantic Relationships, Sexual Violence, Verbal/Emotional Violence, Victimization

Authors

Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia; Rodríguez-deArriba, María-Luisa; Stefanelli, Federica; Nocentini, Annalaura

Purpose

The CyDAV-T was developed to provide researchers and practitioners with a reliable and dimensionally specific measure for assessing the scope and frequency of cyber dating aggression and victimization within adolescent relationships. It is specifically calibrated to capture behaviors occurring over the past year.

The instrument’s design allows for the targeted assessment of three specific forms of digital abuse: verbal/emotional violence, controlling behaviors executed online, and digitally mediated sexual violence. This specificity is essential for informing prevention and intervention strategies targeting digital relationship abuse in young populations.

Construct

The principal construct measured by the CyDAV-T is Cyber Dating Violence (CDV). CDV encompasses any act of psychological, emotional, or sexual harm inflicted upon a partner through the use of electronic communication technologies, such as social media, texting, or email. The instrument is structured around a three-factor latent model:

• Verbal/Emotional Violence: Items assessing digital insults, threats, or harassment aimed at causing emotional distress.

• Control: Items related to excessive digital monitoring, demanding passwords, or restricting the partner’s online interactions.

• Sexual Violence: Items concerning the digital pressure for sexual content or the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

Validity

The validity of the CyDAV-T was supported through analyses of convergent and criterion validity. Findings indicated that respondents involved in all three dimensions of cyber dating aggression and victimization exhibited significantly higher scores on measures of online moral disengagement.

Furthermore, participants showed higher means on the Non-Consensual Sharing Scale (NCS; Walker et al., 2021), confirming that the CyDAV-T measures a construct strongly correlated with established measures of digital harm. Significant differences were observed across nearly all comparisons, with the exception of control aggression and sexual victimization, where the calculated statistical values approached significance.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the CyDAV-T scales was assessed using McDonald’s Omega (ω) coefficients, confirming the measure’s stability across its dimensions.

• For the aggression scale, the ω coefficients ranged from 0.69 to 0.79, indicating acceptable to good reliability across the verbal/emotional, control, and sexual subscales.

• For the victimization scale, the ω coefficients demonstrated strong internal consistency, ranging from 0.72 to 0.85.

Factor Analysis

Scale development employed advanced statistical techniques, including Item Response Theory (IRT) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), to ensure item quality and dimensional structure.

The IRT analysis, specifically using the Item Characteristic Curve (ICC), was critical for item reduction. It highlighted items with very low probability of a positive response (e.g., items 3 and 5 on the aggression scale scored less than 0.1). To maintain structural symmetry between the aggression and victimization scales, parallel items were removed simultaneously, resulting in the final 19-item version for each scale.

Subsequently, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed on the resulting 19-item scales. The CFA confirmed that the hypothesized three-factor model provided a good fit for the data for both aggression (χ2(149) = 163.81, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.02) and victimization (χ2(149) = 227.71, CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04), validating the verbal/emotional, control, and sexual dimensions.

Instrument

Test Type: Original

Format: Items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale measuring the frequency of behavior occurrence over the past year. The scale ranges from 0 = ‘This has never happened to me’ to 4 = ‘This almost always happens to me’.

Language Available: Spanish

Population Group: Human; Male; Female

Age Group: Adolescence (13-17 yrs); Adulthood (18 yrs & older); Young Adulthood (18-29 yrs)

Population Details:

• Location: Spain (initial psychometric study utilized high school students in Seville and Córdoba).

• Respondents: High School Students (Aged 14-18 Years Old) who reported having been in a romantic relationship within the past year.

Test Methodology: Test Validity; Convergent Validity; Criterion Validity; Test Reliability; Internal Consistency; Factor Analysis; Confirmatory Factor Analysis; Item Response Theory

Number of Items: This measure consists of two parallel scales (aggression and victimization), each containing 19 items (38 total items).

Factors and Subscales:

• Factors: Verbal/emotional; Control; Sexual.

Keywords

Adolescence, Aggression, Cyber Dating Violence, Psychometrics, Item Response Theory, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Victimization, Romantic Relationships

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

• Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7394-9311

Affiliation Email addresses:

• Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia: Universidad de Sevilla

• Rodríguez-deArriba, María-Luisa: Universidad de Sevilla

• Stefanelli, Federica: Università degli Studi di Firenze

• Nocentini, Annalaura: Università degli Studi di Firenze

• Email (Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia): [email protected]

Correspondence Address:

• Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author (Sánchez-Jiménez, Virginia)

• Fee: No

• Test Year: 2023

References

Sánchez-Jiménez, V., Rodríguez-deArriba, M.-L., Stefanelli, F., & Nocentini, A. (2023). Cyber Dating Violence Instrument for Teens (CyDAV-T): Dimensional structure and relative item discrimination. Psicothema, 35(2), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2022.196

Items of the Cyber Dating Violence Instrument for Teens (CyDAV-T)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

No data is Available