Social media parenting scale: Validity and reliability study

Abstract

In this study, the concept of social media parenting (SMP) was defined and a scale was developed to measure parents' perceptions of SMP. Although SMP is referred to as sharenting in the literature, given that it has a much broader definition, an attempt was made to define it as a new concept that includes the concept of sharenting. The SMP scale is a five-point Likert-type scale consisting of 28 items that can be grouped under six factors. The study group consisted of 430 parents from different provinces of T & uuml;rkiye who volunteered to participate in the study. To ensure the scale's validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, item discrimination analyses, purpose levels, internal consistency levels, and stability analyses were conducted for reliability. It was concluded that the scale obtained from this research is a valid and reliable scale for measuring parents' perceptions of SMP. The study examined six sections: social media use by parents, the phenomenon of sharenting, parent mediation, the role of the teaching parent, the learning parent, and digital security.The concept of SMP is defined as the use of social media by parents in an effective, safe, and regular manner, with an open attitude toward technological innovations, a focus on digital safety, learning and practicing parenting from the people they follow on social media, providing parenting education on social media, and acting as an idol (role) for their children. SMP is distinguished from other forms of social media use by parents, such as controlling, restricting, informing, and sharing information about their children on social media.A scale related to SMP has been developed.