Construction and validation of an Instrument for the evaluation of Critical Thinking in Family Leisure Decision offline and online (ICT_FLD)

Abstract

Families' critical thinking about shared leisure, both offline and online, influences the quality of family dynamics and the socio-educational development of children. However, research in this area lacks specific and validated instruments that allow for rigorous evaluation, preventing the generation of robust empirical evidence on these processes. This study responds to this need by constructing and validating a quantitative questionnaire. The aim of this study is to construct and evaluate the psychometric properties of an instrument to measure the CT of parents and legal guardians regarding shared offline and online leisure within the family. A total of 740 fathers, mothers or legal guardians of children aged from 5 to 12 years of age, responded to the instrument designed. The psychometric properties of the instrument, which was designed based on a qualitative approach in the development of the items and a content validity process by expert judges, were analyzed. Given the unidimensional nature of the scales, the factorial structure was explored by means of principal components. Subsequently, a first-order confirmatory factor analysis was applied to confirm the joint factor structure of both scales. The instrument shows satisfactory psychometric properties, although the values of the goodness-of-fit indices on the offline shared family leisure scale need to be optimized. This tool could be used to promote personal CT skills in families as it encourages critical and slow reflection on family leisure.