Internet Altruistic Behavior Of Undergraduates: Scale Development And Multilevel Analysis

Internet altruistic behavior refers to the voluntary behavior on the internet which benefit other people and the society and not expect any return. College students are the most concentrated community in internet use, internet has become an indispensable learning and life tool for college students, and undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior is very popular. But the research on undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior is seldom and lacks of assessment tools. Therefore, Research on undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior and attention to the internet's positive influence not only enrich the content of internet psychology, but also are beneficial to construct the healthy and civilized internet atmosphere, promote the harmony of undergraduates'interpersonal relationship, and provide the reference for college students' internet moral education.Based on the construction of the theory of undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior and exploring the psychological structure of undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior, this dissertation developed a high-quality scale of internet altruistic behavior, and made an empirical study on its influence factors using the scale. As a result, this dissertation had two big tasks:one task was to develop the internet altruistic behavior scale of undergraduates. To ensure the high quality of the scale, various theories and techniques of psychological measurement such as Classical Test Theory (CTT), Generalizability Theory (GT), Differential Item Functioning (DIF), and Structural Equation Model (SEM) were used. The other task was to explore the influence factors of the undergraduates' internet altruistic behavior such as individual variables, class variables and school variables. Due to the nested data, the dissertation explored the class variables and school variables impacting on the undergraduates' internet altruistic behavior and the relationship between undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior and their internet-behavior preference using multilevel analysis. The research results outlined below:(1) The results of Classical Test Theory showed that the internet altruistic behavior scale of undergraduates (IABSU) included 30 items four factors which named them internet-support, internet-guidance, internet-sharing and internet-reminding.(2) Differential Item Functioning showed:IABSU had not gender DIF, but 4 items existed area DIF. After the 4 items were deleted, the scale retained 26 items.(3) The results of Generalizability Theory indicated:it was good for the 4 dimentions of IABSU, which ensured high measure accuracy and good measure benefit. The item numbers of IABSU dimensions were right. The measure accuracy of IABSU and its 4 dimensions was high, which was suitable to explain by the norm-referenced test and the criterion-referenced test.(4) The test of reliability and validity showed:the reliability and validity of IABSU were good, it could be used as an effective tool to assess the internet altruistic behavior of undergraduates.(5) Confirmatory factor analysis and cross-validity test indicated that undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior had a multi-level multi-dimension structure which comprised four first-order factors and single second-order factor.(6) Multilevel analysis of class variables influencing college students' internet altruistic behavior showed:Significant differences among classes existed in internet-games preference affecting the total score of IABSU, internet-support and internet-sharing, computer-mediated communication preference affecting internet-support and internet-information preference affecting internet-reminding. The girl rate and the average self-esteem in class could significantly predict class mean difference of internet-support. The girl rate or the average self-esteem in class was higher, the class mean of internet-support was higher. The average online time every week and the average self-esteem in class could significantly moderated the relationship between computer-mediated communication preference and internet-support. The average online time every week was more or the average self-esteem in class was higher, computer-mediated communication preference positively predicted internet-support better.(7) Multilevel analysis of school variables influencing college students' internet altruistic behavior indicated:There were significant differences among schools existing in internet-information preference affecting the total score of IABSU and internet-reminding, internet-games preference affecting internet-sharing. School properties significantly weakened the positive correlation between internet-games preference and internet-sharing. Namely compared with 211-Project University, the positive correlation between internet-games preference and internet-sharing in Non-211-Project University was stronger.The mainly innovation of this dissertation was:(1) it proposed the psychological structure of undergraduates'internet altruistic behavior; (2) it used various psychological measurement theories and techniques to develop a high-quality internet altruistic behavior scale of undergraduates; (3) it used MACS model to detect DIF; (4) Univariate Generalizability Theory and Multivariate Generalizability Theory were both applied to scale development; (5) Multilevel model was used to make an empirical study on the internet altruistic behavior.