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The scale allows the detection of cyber-violence in adolescent couples.
The use of social media, mobile phones and the internet by adolescents to perpetrate violence against their partner is worrying. Hence, it is vital to have reliable instruments specific to the adolescent population to facilitate the evaluation of both situations of harassment and victimisation. The Cyber-violence Scale in Adolescent Couples (Cib-VPA) seems extremely useful as an instrument for the analysis of cyber-violence among adolescents.
The scale consists of two sub-scales, cyber-violence perpetrated and cyber-victimisation, each with 10 items related to aggressive and controlling behaviours that may be inflicted o suffered through social media in adolescent couples. Young people who participate in the research were asked to answer questions according to their experience.
In the cyber-victimisation sub-scale, participants find a set of statements about things that their partner may do or may have done to them on social media or via mobile phones.
In the perpetrated cyber-violence sub-scale, there are some sentences that describe some behaviours that they themselves may have carried out towards their partner.
Participants are asked to rate the extent to which what is described happens or has happened in their last relationship, reflecting both on the attitudes they may have suffered and those they may have subjected others to. They must rate from 1 to 4, being:
- Never,
- Seldom,
- Sometimes,
- Often.
Depending on the degree of overall response, both cyber-control and cyber-aggression situations can be detected.
The BIPSIA Research Group makes this instrument available to the rest of the scientific community for free use in research on this subject.
The scale has been successfully used in more than a dozen research studies, so its reliability has already been proven.
