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Validity and Reliability of the ECIP-Q Among Peruvian Adolescents: A Tool for Monitoring Cyberbullying and School Coexistence

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Cyberbullying is a public health concern in adolescence that requires measures with valid and comparable evidence across subgroups. This study examined the validity and reliability evidence of the European Cyberbullying Intervention Project Questionnaire (ECIP-Q) in Peruvian adolescents. Using an instrumental cross-sectional design, 729 students aged 12–18 years (M_age = 14.6; SD = 1.27) from Lima, Trujillo, and Piura were recruited through non-probabilistic sampling. Items were treated as ordinal; polychoric correlations were estimated (WLSMV, theta parameterization), and a reproducible prevalence-based recoding was applied to mitigate pileups in category 0. Competing CFA and ESEM models were tested for 22- and 19-item specifications, incorporating two residual covariances for “mirror-pair” items. Sex invariance was evaluated at configural, metric, and scalar levels. The two-factor, 19-item ESEM with two residual covariances showed the best fit (χ2 = 291.164; df = 130; CFI = 0.982; TLI = 0.976; RMSEA = 0.041 [0.035–0.048]; SRMR = 0.091). Reliability was adequate for cybervictimization (CR = 0.737, ω = 0.888, factor determinacy [fd] = 0.965) and cyberaggression (CR = 0.282, ω = 0.805, fd = 0.938). Cyberbullying dimensions correlated positively with aggression and moral disengagement and weakly with empathy. Regarding sociodemographic variables, cyberbullying was associated with age, grade, and Internet use; moreover, cyberaggression was higher in boys than in girls. Having more friends and better relationships with teachers were negatively associated with cyberbullying, whereas perceiving the school environment as unsafe was positively associated with cyberbullying. Overall, the 19-item ECIP-Q demonstrates acceptable structural validity, reliability, and sex invariance in Peruvian adolescents, supporting its use for screening and monitoring school coexistence.

Source: Education Sciences

DOI: 10.3390/educsci15111565

Authors: Julio Dominguez-Vergara, Henry Santa-Cruz-Espinoza, María Quintanilla-Castro, Carlos López-Villavicencio

Institutions: Universidad Tecnológica del Perú, Universidad Autónoma del Perú, Universidad César Vallejo, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia

Language: English

Topic: Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,172