Development, validity, and reliability of the parent-adolescent communication about adolescents’ social media use scale (PACAS)

Figures & data

Table 1. Valid percentages for the four scales of the PACAS (wave 1).

		Never	Almost never	Sometimes	Often	Very often
Parental Solicitation	How often do your parents initiate a conversation with you about …
	what you do on social media?	31.70%	39.43%	22.94%	4.90%	1.03%
	with whom you interact on social media?	32.47%	37.37%	24.48%	4.64%	1.03%
	the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	33.25%	33.76%	23.45%	8.76%	0.77%
	the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	36.86%	36.86%	19.33%	5.67%	1.29%
Adolescent Disclosure	How often do you tell your parents about …
	what you do on social media?	26.80%	37.37%	26.03%	7.99%	1.80%
	with whom you interact on social media?	25.77%	32.99%	28.87%	10.05%	2.32%
	the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	23.45%	27.84%	29.64%	15.21%	3.87%
	the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	34.79%	34.54%	18.56%	8.25%	3.87%
Adolescent Secrecy	How often do you keep secrets from your parents about …
	what you do on social media?	42.78%	30.15%	17.78%	6.96%	2.32%
	with whom you interact on social media?	45.10%	32.22%	12.63%	7.22%	2.84%
	the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	52.84%	27.32%	12.11%	5.67%	2.06%
	the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	50.26%	26.55%	14.18%	5.67%	3.35%
		Nothing at all	Almost nothing	A little	A lot	A great deal
Parental Knowledge	What do your parents know about …
	what you do on social media?	8.76%	17.78%	36.08%	29.12%	8.25%
	with whom you interact on social media?	13.40%	23.45%	30.93%	23.71%	8.51%
	the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	12.63%	26.29%	27.58%	25.52%	7.99%
	the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	20.88%	31.19%	24.23%	16.24%	7.47%

Table 2. Oblimin-rotated factor loadings and eigenvalues of the exploratory factor analysis with the three parent-adolescent communication scales of the PACAS.

	Factor Loadings
	Wave 1			Wave 2			Eigenvalues
	1	2	3	1	2	3	Wave 1	Wave 2
Factor 1: Adolescent Disclosure							4.78	4.66
How often do you tell your parents about …
(1) what you do on social media?	.89	.03	.05	.81	−.01	−.05
(2) with whom you interact on social media?	.85	.01	.02	.77	−.05	−.04
(3) the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	.76	.00	−.04	.85	.03	.07
(4) the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	.74	−.06	−.09	.71	.02	−.06
Factor 2: Adolescent Secrecy							3.44	3.19
How often do you keep secrets from your parents about …
(1) what you do on social media?	−.03	.90	−.03	−.03	.90	.01
(2) with whom you interact on social media?	−.02	.89	−.05	−.04	.87	−.01
(3) the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	.05	.90	.06	−.01	.88	−.04
(4) the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	−.01	.85	−.00	.07	.81	.03
Factor 3: Parental Solicitation							1.05	1.23
How often do your parents initiate a conversation with you about …
(1) what you do on social media?	−.08	.03	−.85	−.13	−.01	−.92
(2) with whom you interact on social media?	.01	.05	−.74	.00	.02	−.78
(3) the enjoyable experiences you have on social media?	.06	−.03	−.75	.17	.01	−.66
(4) the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media?	.09	−.06	−.78	.20	−.01	−.67

Note. Factor loadings ≥ .40 are shown in bold.

Table 3. Factor loadings of the confirmatory factor analysis with the three parent-adolescent communication scales of the PACAS.

	Wave 1			Wave 2
	Parental Solicitation	Adolescent Disclosure	Adolescent Secrecy	Parental Solicitation	Adolescent Disclosure	Adolescent Secrecy
Item 1 – what you do on social media	.78	.85	.92	.79	.87	.90
Item 2 – with whom you interact on social media	.74	.84	.91	.77	.82	.87
Item 3 – the enjoyable experiences you have on social media	.81	.78	.87	.80	.77	.89
Item 4 – the unenjoyable experiences you have on social media	.84	.80	.84	.82	.73	.80

Table 4. Correlations, reliability estimates, means, standard deviations, and skewness and kurtosis statistics for the four scales of the PACAS.

	Parental Solicitation	Adolescent Disclosure	Adolescent Secrecy	Parental Knowledge
Parental Solicitation	–	.57***	.15**	.41***
Adolescent Disclosure	.62***	–	.02	.61***
Adolescent Secrecy	.08	−.12*	–	−.22***
Parental Knowledge	.50***	.64***	−.20***	–
Cronbach’s α Wave 1	.87	.89	.94	.87
Cronbach’s α Wave 2	.87	.87	.92	.88
M (SD) Wave 1	2.04 (0.80)	2.28 (0.92)	1.87 (0.96)	2.87 (0.97)
M (SD) Wave 2	1.95 (0.79)	2.28 (0.90)	1.90 (0.96)	2.89 (0.90)
Skewness Wave 1	0.52	0.54	1.17	−0.01
Skewness Wave 2	0.37	0.26	1.07	0.04
Kurtosis Wave 1	−0.04	−0.06	0.93	−0.60
Kurtosis Wave 2	−0.71	−0.40	0.61	−0.14

Note. Correlations below the diagonal line represent Wave 1 correlations, correlations above the diagonal line represent Wave 2 correlations.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.