TY - GEN
T1 - When Scales Fail to Measure Up
T2 - 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2025
AU - Farzand, Habiba
AU - Farooq, Ali
AU - Salminen, Joni
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2025/4/26
Y1 - 2025/4/26
N2 - Privacy scales are scientific instruments measuring constructs, such as users’ concerns, preferences, or behaviour; however, the development and validation of privacy scales are often limited to populations in the Global North. This poses a challenge for evaluating and generalising the scale results in the Global South. We present the results of a replication study on the external validity of the Privacy-Defensive Behaviour Scale (PDBS) with a representative sample of 8140 participants from 16 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Our results show that the PDBS, when administered in the MENA region, has a poor model fit, does not support the factor structure of the original scale, and exhibits low reliability and validity. Our results highlight the need for cross-cultural scale validation and adaptation. We discuss possible underlying reasons and best practices for scale validation studies.
AB - Privacy scales are scientific instruments measuring constructs, such as users’ concerns, preferences, or behaviour; however, the development and validation of privacy scales are often limited to populations in the Global North. This poses a challenge for evaluating and generalising the scale results in the Global South. We present the results of a replication study on the external validity of the Privacy-Defensive Behaviour Scale (PDBS) with a representative sample of 8140 participants from 16 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Our results show that the PDBS, when administered in the MENA region, has a poor model fit, does not support the factor structure of the original scale, and exhibits low reliability and validity. Our results highlight the need for cross-cultural scale validation and adaptation. We discuss possible underlying reasons and best practices for scale validation studies.
KW - Cross-Cultural Study
KW - Mena
KW - Privacy Defensive Behavior
KW - Scale Validity
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105005747284
U2 - 10.1145/3706599.3720138
DO - 10.1145/3706599.3720138
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105005747284
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
BT - CHI EA 2025 - Extended Abstracts of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 26 April 2025 through 1 May 2025
ER -