Psychometric properties of the 7-item game addiction scale among Ghanaian university students

Abstract

Recent studies have reported that video game addiction is prevalent among university students. Despite this, video game addiction studies in Ghana are scarce. In addition, there is no validated scale for assessing video game addiction in Ghana. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the 7-item Gaming Addiction Scale (GAS) among Ghanaian university students. Participants were 814 university students from three public universities in Ghana. The average age of the participants was 20.62 years ( SD = 2.49). The data were collected using the Gaming Addiction Scale, Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale–Short Version, Brief Resilience Scale, Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale. The data were analysed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and AMOS Statistical Package. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the unidimensional structure of the 7-item GAS. A Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.85 demonstrated that the scale had a good internal consistency reliability. Analysis using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient revealed that the 7-item GAS correlated differently with some criterion variables (emotional intelligence, stress, depression, anxiety, resilience, smartphone addiction and facebook addiction) as evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity. Measurement invariance tests indicated that the instrument demonstrated measurement invariance across age, university type and programme of study. These findings suggest that the 7-item GAS is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring video game addiction symptoms among Ghanaian university students.