Cross-national examination of gaming motives among college students from seven countries

YANINA MICHELINI; IGNACIO M IBÁÑEZ; ANGELINA PILATTI; ADRIAN BRAVO; GENERÓS ORTET

Madrid

Jornada; X Jornadas de la Asociación Iberoamericana para la Investigación de las Diferencias Individuales (AIIDI); 2021

Asociación Iberoamericana para la Investigación de las Diferencias Individuales (AIIDI)

Introduction. Gaming motives (reasons to play video games) appear to be an important predictor of gaming outcomes, including videogame use disorder. The Videogaming Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) has shown adequate psychometric properties to assess gaming motives among Spanish college students. An accurate and cross-national validated measure of gaming motives is needed to rigorously examine gaming behaviors among college students from different countries. Aims. (1) to adapt and validate the VMQ for its use in six countries; (2) to examine the measurement invariance of the VMQ in undergraduates across seven countries and gender; (3) to compare criterion-related validity of the VMQ across countries and gender. Method. A sample of undergraduates who played video games in the last-year (5,192; 59.07% women) from the United States, Canada, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, England and Uruguay completed an online survey measuring gaming frequency (hours in a typical week), gaming disorder (assessed with the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale), gaming motives and personality traits (assessed with the Big Five Personality Trait Short Questionnaire). Results. Findings largely supported the 24-item 8-intercorrelated factor model structure of the VMQ in the total sample and across countries (except Uruguay) and gender. Results also supported configural, metric, and scalar invariance of the VMQ (all ΔCFI/TLI ≤ 0.01; ΔRMSEA ≤ 0.015) across countries and gender. In examining criterion-related validity, it was observed positive correlations between gaming motives and both gaming frequency and gaming disorder. Moreover, low extraversion, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness correlated with greater gaming motives. Correlations between VMQ and non-VMQ variables were similar across gender and countries except in England that showed higher correlations of VMQ with gaming frequency, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness. Discussion. The VMQ scores presented evidence of validity to assess gaming motives among college student gamers across the United States, Canada, South Africa, Spain and Argentina.