Measuring Mediation of Children’s Media Use

Abstract

This study presents the development of a new scale for measuring mediation of children’s noninteractive and interactive media use by their caregivers. Comprising two subscales, this 16-item measure was tested in a pilot study and then included in an online survey of 356 grandparents. The mediation constructs had good internal homogeneity, significant interconstruct correlations, and high loadings on a single latent factor for each subscale. Scores were well distributed along the range. A concurrent validity test indicated a significant negative association between attitudes toward media and restrictive mediation. These findings suggest that the new scale is reliable and useful.